


swear to god (i ain't ever gonna repent)

by lucylikestowrite



Series: after this life, i'll find you in the next [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: (bc sara gets recruited into the league as a teen), Alternate Universe - Mr. & Mrs. Smith Fusion, Angst, Blood, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, Miscommunication, Romance, Sad, Self-Hatred, Smut, Swearing, Violence, but not a straight au, but of course also an, containing in no particular order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-05-16 06:03:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14805746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucylikestowrite/pseuds/lucylikestowrite
Summary: Sara Lance is the best at what she does, and what she does is kill people.(Or: Sara is more than a private security contractor. Ava is more than an accountant. They fall in love, and, when the truth comes out, things get messy.)





	1. all my sins need holy water

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> I'm back from exams. A lot has happened since I left (including me meeting caity lotz wow) but I am now BACK and I am SO EXCITED to share this with you. I'm not kidding when I say that this fic is my baby. I've been working on it on and off since December. It was one of the first fic ideas I had for these two, EVER. 
> 
> Originally it was just meant to be my first attempt at a multi-chapter or them, maybe 10k + 3 chapters, and then it spiraled and became _this_ , which is a 50k MONSTER of 10 chapters + an epilogue.
> 
> Fic title is from say amen by panic. Chapter title is from river by eminem and ed sheeran. I'm making a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/lucylivesherlife/playlist/17zwLmbir9EKRCxsurE32K) with all of the songs I use for titles, to be updated each week.
> 
> PS: I have spent a long time agonising over details and trying to make it all believable but the fact is that the premise is inherently ridiculous so just go with it if it seems a bit unbelievable okay?

Sara Lance is the best at what she does, and what she does is kill people.

It has always been that way, or, at least, that’s what it feels like. Sara hardly remembers a time before. It had been easier to forget. Easier to remember the only thing that matters: that her family had died and the League had found her.

The two things were, maybe, connected, but she had been a teenager, young and impressionable and wanting to believe the best, and so she'd never thought about it too much. Not when the League was teaching her how to be better and stronger and how to forget everything but what she needed to know to be a better asset.

In her, the League had found the perfect student. She was clever and she was a fast learner and, above all else, she was tough. Resilient. Strong.

Ra’s Al Ghul had taken her under his wing, trained her and taught her and raised her.

Gained her trust, and then blurred the lines between what was good and what was bad, broken her until she had been perfectly happy to kill.

Or, at least, willing. Happy isn’t the word for it. It is kill or be killed, and she doesn’t want to die.

But willing almost isn’t the right word, either. She doesn’t like what she does. She just does it. It’s her life, and she’s come to accept that, has learnt to push the feelings that rise up inside of her every time she kills down, deep down, until they’re hardly there anymore.

Part of the League training was not to feel, not to feel pain, physical or emotional, and she’d almost gotten there, but never quite.

They’d broken her, not enough to stop her from feeling _something_ when she kills—but enough that she is too scared of what they would do to her if she tried to say no.

Her family had died, and she doesn't want to follow them, not yet.

And that is all the League needs—they need her to be able to kill, well, and they need her to be loyal.

She is the best at killing, and she has no reason not to be loyal, so she is all that they need.

She had been shaped into the perfect assassin, and she would've stayed that way if nothing had happened to change that. Because it’s all she know. Because she has no-one and nowhere else to go.

Because it’s easy.

It is easy to numb the pain with alcohol and one night stands and sessions in the gym that last until the screaming in her muscles drowns out the screaming in her head.

It is easy to pull the trigger on a gun, to move a knife just _so,_ so that it kills in an instant.

All of that is easy. Letting herself feel—that’s what is hard.

So she doesn’t feel. Doesn’t let it in.

Sara knows it’s not healthy to ignore it all. Knows that her path is destructive, knows that it’s going to end with her dead if she doesn’t stray at some point, but she just doesn’t have the energy.

It is death either way, anyway. Death if she stays, and death if she doesn’t. She doesn’t have a choice.

She is drowning, paralysed, and she would’ve stayed that way if she’d never met anyone who made her think that maybe she _does_ have a choice, that maybe she has a chance for a future that involves making it to thirty.

She would’ve stayed that way if she had never met Ava Sharpe.

 

The night that she does, Sara is tired. The drink she's been working on for an hour is cradled between her hands.

The job she had that day was harder than usual. The target didn't go quietly, and there's a bandaged wound under her sleeves to show for it.

Her phone pings. It's another job, for tonight. From the looks of it, it'll be easy. It _should_ be. They rarely dare send her more than one job in a week, let alone two in one day. They'd only do this if they knew it would be easy for her. She downs her drink, and then orders another. She shouldn't need to leave for a while.

And then the door opens, and it's the beginning of the end.

(Not that she knows that, yet.)

A woman walks in. She's dressed up for the bar in a way that Sara isn't it. Sara is under-dressed, but she comes here often, spends a lot, and the security isn't the type to enforce the dress code.

The woman’s dress is short, tight, and red. Her hair, long and dark blonde, is loose around her shoulders, cascading over her skin in waves that look too good to be true. She doesn't look particularly comfortable in the dress, in the heels she is wearing, but is still walking with confidence.

Sara is immediately intrigued, immediately attracted, but there’s no point hoping, because, in all likelihood, Sara is not what the woman is looking for.

Sure, Sara’s slept with her fair share of straight women, but they're so much more effort, and she doesn’t have the energy tonight required to convince another woman that it’s not going to be the end of the world if she sleeps with Sara.

She doesn’t even have time for anything tonight, anyway.

So she doesn't turn, even when the woman makes her way to sit at the bar right next to her, but instead remains nonchalant, surreptitiously scanning the bar. Everyone is looking at the woman in red, including the man on the other side of her to Sara.

He doesn't waste any time. She’s barely sat down before he's offering to buy her a drink.

She refuses, politely. More politely than Sara would've.

He tries again, and her voice has more of an edge in it when she says, “ _No_ , thank you.”

Sara is ready to get up and fight the dude when he tries a third time.

“I'm a lesbian,” the woman says, slightly reluctantly, but still with force behind her voice.

And, oh, that changes things. Sara didn’t even have to ask. Maybe she has time for… something, if she’s not going to have to waste time figuring out whether or not this woman even has the potential to be into her.

The man looks her up and down, then finally turns away.

The woman turns away from him, sighing. She tugs at the hem of her dress, her confidence clearing waning. She looks like she wishes she was anywhere but here. Sara finds herself staring. The dress has a neckline that makes it hard to concentrate. Sara looks up, right into her eyes.

“Did you want something?” the woman asks, her voice sounding close to a breaking point. “Or were you just going to keep staring at my boobs?”

Behind the stress that is evident on her face, there is a snap, a bite to her that Sara likes. The woman is obviously not afraid to fight back.

“No, I—” Sara stops, because she’s almost _stammering,_ and it’s ridiculous. She starts again. “Are you actually gay?” It's not the best opener, by any measure. She winces internally, and, as the seconds pass, Sara realises that far from it not being the best opener, it's actually an utterly, utterly terrible opener. Maybe the worst.

She's got no excuse, except for the fact that the mere presence of this woman is putting her more than a little off of her usual, flawless game. She can’t explain it because they’ve only exchanged a couple of words, but suddenly she wants more than just _something_. Suddenly she wants _everything_ , and it hits her like a ton of bricks.

“Why would I lie about that?” the woman replies, shaking her head in disbelief. She turns away, as if the conversation is over. Sara is determined that it isn't. The woman is ordering a drink and she catches a glimpse of the name on her ID: Ava.

“Sorry. Sorry. That was rude. I've just met some girls who use that as that get-out-of-jail-free card for annoying guys,” Sara says. “Not that I blame them, really,” she adds, hastily. “It just makes it hard to tell for the rest of us.”

Ava is clearly only half listening. She gets her drink, and immediately downs it. Her expression, along with the stress, is sad, tired, slightly defeated. Sara wants to change that. She changes tack.

“What's got you dressed up all nice like that?”

Ava turns back to look at her, her eyes narrowed.

“Isn't this the dress code?” Ava looks down at her clothes, then at Sara’s ripped jeans and worn leather jacket.

“It is. But I'm good at reading people.” _So I can be better at killing them,_ Sara doesn't add. “I can tell you don't normally dress like that.” She pauses. “Not that you shouldn't. It looks great.”

Ava smiles a bit, glancing downwards. “Oh. Well. Thanks, I guess.” Then her face shifts. “Wait a second. Are you flirting with me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“What were you expecting? Rocking up looking like that and then announcing your sexual proclivities to the entire bar?”

Ava pauses, then says, “I was rather hoping… I wouldn't find anything, and could say I tried.” Her words are slow, as if she is choosing them carefully.

Sara raises an eyebrow.

“I don't believe you. No-one is hoping that looking like _that_.” Sara tilts her head, pursing her lips.

Ava makes a sound that is almost a giggle, soft and inviting and obviously nervous. Her eyes sweep over Sara’s body, and then she bites her lip.

Sara holds her breath. She never usually cares what people think of her, but now this woman has Sara craving her approval. Ava’s eyes are still flicking over Sara’s face, over her body, and then her mouth falls open a tiny bit. She licks her lower lip. It’s definitely a tell. Sara grins.

Something clicks. Ava’s body relaxes a bit, her sharp edges rounding. She introduces herself, and Sara pretends she hasn't already figured her name out.

Ava holds out her hand at the introduction, and Sara takes it, then doesn’t let go, her fingers moving up the bare skin of Ava’s arm, slow, and hardly even a conscious movement.

Ava lets her, leaning in closer, and it’s definitely a good sign.

They drift away from the bar, settling in a booth a little way away. Sara shrugs off her jacket, the leather suddenly too restricting.

It’s also a sign, a sign that she’s planning on being here for a while, and Ava seems to pick this up, her eyes following Sara’s hands as she puts the jacket down beside her. Ava’s eyes go into her own lap, where she’s still clutching her purse as if her life depended on it.

Ava seems to realise this, seems to see the tension in her fingers at the same time that Sara does, and she hastily sets the purse aside. When she looks back up at Sara, there is a nervous smile on her face, and she looks utterly, breathtakingly beautiful.

Sara can't stop herself from staring. She hasn't felt like this since Nyssa, hasn't felt herself falling quite as quickly in years.

It's dangerous, because _she's_ dangerous, but that’s pushed to the back of her mind.

They talk, and it’s easy. Hours pass and Sara hardly even notices, because Ava just feels _right_. Her voice is like music to Sara’s ears. Everything she says, every word, is somehow exactly what Sara wants to hear.

She laughs, that same wonderful, wonderful laugh, and Sara wants to hear it over and over again.

Sara has to be careful about what she says, but her cover story has been so carefully crafted that almost nothing is a lie. The League had even found her a real job, private security, to be hired out on contract. She's in high demand, and it keeps her busy.

So she doesn't have to lie, not that much, and she's glad. She doesn't want to be lying.

“Private security, huh?” Ava says, leaning in, her voice light, and there is something behind her eyes, something that Sara can’t quite read. “You good in a fight?”

“I am excellent in a fight,” Sara says. On the offense as well as defense, though, but Ava doesn’t need to know that.

She’s a little bit smug, but she can’t help it. For a second, Ava doesn’t react, and Sara wonders if she should wipe the expression on her face away. Then Ava bites her lip again, and Sara is pretty sure she gets goosebumps, a shiver running up her spine.

When Ava’s hand finds her arm, fingers running purposefully over Sara’s skin, everything feels inevitable.

When Sara kisses her, pressing Ava hard up against the leather of the booth, it doesn't feel like it's the first time, it feels like settling into something familiar. Her hands are on Ava’s waist, red material under her fingers like blood.

Ava pulls away for a second, a hand going to her neck, her head ducking.

“Is this okay?”

Somehow, this woman is still nervous, and it’s the most adorable thing Sara has ever seen.

“I kissed you,” Sara reminds her, “so I think I should be asking that question.”

“Oh,” Ava says, and her voice is soft. “Right.”

Her eyes are flicking around Sara’s face like crazy, and she’s tensing up, and all Sara wants to do is pull her back in, but she doesn’t.

Instead, she echoes Ava’s question, in earnest, because, even after a couple of hours, she is more protective of this woman than she thought she could be of anyone, ever again, and the thought of doing something that might hurt her is almost painful. “ _Is_ this okay?”

Ava’s eyes, which had fallen back down, flick upwards, and she doesn’t say anything, just nods, a small smile on her face that has Sara melting, because it’s adorable. She really is adorable, and, even in that dress that should have Sara thinking about nothing but getting it off her, almost all Sara can think about is making her smile like that, over and over again.

(Only almost, though, because, of course, _part_ of her is thinking about getting the dress off of Ava’s shoulders. Just not all of her. Not as much of her as would usually be thinking it. Not as much as her as would usually be wanting that while she was kissing a stranger in a bar.)

And then Ava reaches out a thumb, dragging it over Sara’s lips, and she goes from adorable to driving Sara crazy in one motion. It’s like someone has flipped a switch. The feeling of Ava’s finger on her mouth is enough to move Sara’s thoughts back towards her body. Towards her body, and Ava’s body, and both of them together.

She’s suddenly imagining what Ava might be like, and she can feel need pooling, building up, just at the thought. Ava’s thumb skates over her skin of her cheek, her hand snaking around to find the back of Sara’s head, pulling Sara back in, her movements assured.

Ava’s mouth is eager, hard. Sara’s mouth falls open, and Ava wastes no time taking advantage of this, licking in deeper.

When Sara finally pulls away, she is gasping. She takes a breath, then leans back in, because she needs more.

And then, abruptly, before Sara's lips can reach Ava's, Ava pulls back again, her eyes wide.

Sara almost whines. Almost. She doesn't, though, manages to control herself, and just follows Ava’s receding mouth with her own, trying and failing to capture her back. She wonders briefly if this is Ava’s game. To build her up and pull away over and over again until it’s more than Sara can take.

But Ava doesn’t seem like the sort of person to play games. Her face is too open, too honest, too utterly devoid of duplicity.

Sara looks at her, and falls deeper. It’s dangerous, because if Ava is an open book, Sara is anything but.

Ava glances at something over Sara’s shoulder, and when Sara turns to look, to follow her gaze, Ava drags her face back to look at her.

“I want you,” Ava says, her eyes flashing.

Sara knows at that second that Ava feels it too, feels whatever this is.

“I'm not going anywhere.” Sara is lying. She knows she’ll have to leave later. But, despite her best intentions, she can't stop herself. Lies fall off her tongue, honeyed words doing whatever they can to keep Ava in her grip. “We can stay here as long as you want.”

Another lie.

Ava’s hand moves up Sara’s leg. “No. I _want_ you. Right now.” Her voice wavers just the smallest amount, and there is a hint of worry—hesitancy about what she is saying—underneath the desire clear in her tone, the desire that makes it clear _how_ exactly it is that she wants Sara.

Sara blinks. She hadn’t been expecting that. _Obviously_ , she’d already been having fantasies about Ava coming undone under her hands, but Ava has been so coy, so tentative even while driving Sara crazy, that Sara hadn’t thought Ava would want to move that quickly. And she hadn’t even minded. She would’ve been happy to stay doing what they were doing, to leave that for another night, if that had been what Ava had wanted.

But now that the possibility of having Ava right now is on the table, it’s all Sara can think about. She can’t stop a sound from escaping from her mouth.

Sara considers, for a second, running it through her mind.

It's not something she usually has to think about, because she never plans to see people again after she sleeps with them, so she doesn't usually have to worry about how her job and her life—about how who she is and what she does—might affect them.

But with Ava… something is different, and she somehow knows that if she gives in to Ava’s request—her _demand_ —then this is going to go further.

And that's not fair on Ava, not when Sara is who is she is.

So, Sara concludes, she shouldn't take her up on the offer. She really shouldn't. She shouldn’t have even let it get this far, shouldn't have let Ava kiss her. She should've backed away when she felt feelings begin to arise.

But she hadn't, and Ava is looking at her, wide-eyed and looking so ridiculously tempting that it becomes obvious very quickly that there's no point trying to stop herself at this point. She's too far gone, the point of no return an hour in the rear-view mirror.

Sara pulls Ava up, hands on her waist.

Ava leans in, and having all of her so close quells any final doubts Sara might have; there is no way they're stopping.

She will deal with the consequences later.

As they move, it’s hard to keep her hands from moving places that are inappropriate in public.

Of course, the restroom that they end up in is still _strictly_ public, but the lock gives some semblance of privacy.

The bar has not skimped on decorating. The large room is plush, almost classy. There are flowers that almost look real, and soft music is playing in the background. Sara briefly notices this, before Ava is pulling her back towards her, their mouths crashing together. Her hands settle in the small of Sara’s back, pulling her waist in towards her own.

Ava is flush against the door, but, God, stood up and in heels she's far too tall. Sara is pressing up and Ava is leaning down but it's not going to work for what Sara wants— _needs_ to do next.

She pulls away from Ava’s mouth to say, “Shoes. Take your shoes off,” her voice coming out like a gasp.

Ava does, without question, stepping out of them and down to Sara’s level. She winces slightly as bare feet hit the cold floor.

Sara sees this, sees Ava's face contort briefly at the sensation. “You okay?”

Ava nods.

Now, she's only got a couple of inches on Sara, and it's much better.

Sara smiles in approval, kisses Ava, hard, and then she's fighting with Ava’s dress to get it out of the way, feeling needy in a way she never normally does. There's a deep want inside of Sara. When her fingers finally find the spot, pushing past Ava’s underwear, Ava's head tips back in pleasure, and everything feels right.

She captures Ava back in a kiss. When Ava pulls away, she's breathing heavily.

Sara’s fingers press deeper, applying pressure that she knows should feel amazing.

“I don't usually do this.” Ava pauses. “I never do this,” she says, correcting herself. Sara curls her fingers, and Ava gasps. “I'm an— accountant, for fuck’s sake,” she manages to spit out, between breaths of air.

“Who says accountants can't get fucked in public restrooms?”

Ava groans, burying her face in Sara’s shoulder.

“Me, usually,” she says, her voice muffled by Sara’s shirt.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Ava shakes her head.

“There's a first time for everything, then,” Sara says, her voice cheerful, trying to disguise real emotion behind a playful facade.

Ava opens her mouth to say something, but it is lost in the choked off sound that escapes from her lips when Sara adds another finger.

"Fuck," Ava manages to gasp out. "Fuck."

Sounds fall out of Ava's mouth, sounds that are hardly words, as Sara keeps going, working deeper into her, her hand moving in a steady rhythm. At some point, Ava goes almost silent, and then she's gripping tight onto Sara's waist. "Fuck," Ava says again, her breathing speeding up.

"Nearly there," Sara says, her voice quiet, soothing. She is never usually like this, never usually this soft, especially not when she's screwing people in public, but Ava has her wanting to be gentle.

Or gentle with her words, at least, because then Ava nods to confirm that, yes, she's close, closes her eyes, and breathes out something that sounds like, "More. Please." So maybe Sara doesn't have to be gentle with _how_ she's doing this.

Ava might be delicate in her demeanor, in the anxiety evident beneath her words and the confidence she puts on, but she isn't delicate in the lines of her body. Not only does she have a good couple of inches on Sara, but there is hard muscle under Sara's hand where it grips onto Ava's arm. When Sara had briefly skimmed her fingers over Ava's stomach, there had been muscle there as well.

So she's not exactly fragile, and Sara is pretty sure she could take whatever Sara wanted to give her, but she's going to ask what Ava needs, because she wants this to be perfect.

She doesn't usually care about making things perfect. Usually she just cares about being effective, about getting them off as quickly as possible so that they can return the favor.

Sara leans in, her lips close to Ava's ear. "Harder? Or faster?" she asks, so quiet it is hardly more than a whisper.

Ava nods, eager.

"Which one?"

Ava is so far gone that it takes a second ask of the question before she answers.

"What do you need, Ava?"

Sara really is breaking all of her rules. She's usually totally in charge, but now she's almost letting Ava run this.

"Harder," Ava says, after a brief pause, her whole body shaking.

"Okay," Sara says, and she adds more force to her thrusts, all the while talking Ava through it, her voice sweet, low, encouraging her, coaxing her closer to the peak.

A few minutes later, Ava is tightening around her fingers, and Sara abandons the sweet-talk, just finds Ava's mouth and kisses her until neither of them have any air left.

When Ava comes, fluttering around her fingers, Sara feels, briefly, like she's flying.

Ava’s eyes are still closed. Her face is relaxed, almost blissful. Her chest is heaving. She has come utterly undone, and Sara had done that, had made that happen, and it feels better than anything. Ava's still leaning against the door, and Sara pulls her close, desperate to breathe in the same air, desperate to touch her, to feel her heartbeat where it is racing in her chest.

She has fallen, that is for sure. There’s no point denying that. Her fantasy of earlier flashes back behind her eyes, and she suddenly needs to be somewhere that isn't a bathroom, needs to be somewhere properly private, needs to lay Ava down on a bed and keep her there the entire night, keep her until the morning so she can wreck her again.

When Ava’s eyes flutter open, Sara says as much. Ava doesn't object. She grins as she pulls her dress back down, as she leans down to slip her heels back on, and follows Sara out of the bathroom and back through the bar.

On the street, Sara hails a taxi, pulling Ava back in for a kiss. The air is cold, and Ava’s mouth is warm. A life flashes on the backs of Sara’s eyelids, and she knows it's crazy, but she can't help it.

And then her phone buzzes in her back pocket and she is sent crashing back down into reality.

It was briefly far too easy to forget who she is and what she does. Too easy to stop lying and just forget. She had been drunk on a feeling, and her mind had gone blank.

Ava had done that to her. Made her forget, and the feeling of being free, even for a few minutes, was so much, and now that she remembers, all she wants is to be back in that bar, in that bathroom, thinking about nothing but the woman in front of her.

But she can’t go back.

Sara kisses her once more, Ava’s mouth searing hot, then pulls away, and whispers, “I have to go.”

Ava blinks.

“You're kidding, right?” Her voice is disbelieving, and Sara _wishes_ she was kidding.

“No. I'm so sorry. It's a work emergency.”

(Someone needs to die.)

Ava’s arms wrap around her body, withdrawing into herself. Sara’s phone goes off again. She curses internally, and then externally.

“Can I get your number?” Sara asks.

Ava just stares at her, her mouth open, shaking her head slightly. Sara pleads with her silently, but it doesn't look like Ava is going to say anything.

So, instead, Sara finds a pen somewhere in her purse, taking care not to dislodge the gun hidden there, then pulls Ava’s hand away from her body, scribbling her number on her skin as quickly and clearly as she can.

That Ava doesn't pull her hand away has to be some sort of sign. Sara has to believe that.

“Call me, please,” she begs. Ava’s face is hard.

And then Sara is gone, turning away, and for the first time in years, she almost cries. But she's missed jobs before, and she's paid the price. And other people have the price.

Al Ghul might be okay with Ava. Any sort of legitimacy is good, every real connection a barrier to the authorities ever catching on. But if she were to get in the way, before he even knew about her... that wouldn’t be good.

Sara sits in the back of a taxi, her eyes closed.

Al Ghul married off his own daughter because she was getting in the way of Sara’s work. She hates to think what he'd do to someone who isn't his own flesh and blood.

 

The hit is easy. He doesn't see it coming. Most of the time, they don't. She wonders briefly who he is, and then leaves it. It's not her job to reason why, just to do.

She goes to bed sure that she's blown it, that she won't hear anything ever again, that she's let this woman slip through her fingers.

And yet, as she is on the edge of oblivion, she can't help picturing Ava in her house. It's too big. The League bought it for her, and she rattles around in it. She allows herself the brief luxury of wishing for someone to help fill the empty spaces, then falls asleep.

Sara dreams, of course, of a woman in red, her body putty under her hands. And, of course, the dream ends as a nightmare, red blood staining the material, because how could it ever end well, anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew okay i hope you guys are ready for a WILD RIDE over the next two months because I sure am
> 
> @_avasharpe/directoravasharpe.tumblr.com


	2. walking a tightrope with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from the greatest showman, which tells you when i first wrote this chapter,,,,

Sara wakes up, as she always does, late. No-one is ever killed in the morning. In the morning, they're where they're supposed to be, where people know them and know their movements. It's in the afternoon and evenings and nights that people sneak off to places they shouldn't, and make themselves targets.

It's hard to make a death look like an accident if you shoot them through their kitchen window while they eat breakfast. It's much easier when they're skulking in dark alleys or dingy motels.

And she doesn't take morning shifts with the security firm she works for, not anymore.

They'd tried that at first, trying to get her to come in to guard rich kids and spoilt heiresses at 5am.

They'd quickly learnt that she turns up when she wants to.

She rolls out of bed, and is halfway to the bathroom before last night’s events come back to her, a blur of a red dress, alcohol, and hot lips on hers.

Her phone, her cover phone, the one that is not connected in any way to the League, the one that, until last night, she'd never had anyone to give the number to, is face down on her nightstand and she almost can't look.

She hovers, nervously, feeling like a schoolgirl with a crush, then gives herself a talking to, and grabs it.

There's nothing there. The screen is blank.

The time stares at her.

She can’t help it; she throws it, a fit of anger bursting through her, a fit that she would usually restrain, but right now, she can’t.

The sound of the phone hitting the floor is loud.

Sara opens the drawer in her nightstand, pulling out her League phone. She swipes it open and sends a message to her contact.

 **SARA LANCE:** _I need a job._

The reply comes quickly.

 **BLOCKED NUMBER:** _No-one needs to die today._

She swears, dials the other job.

There are always people who need protecting.

And she needs something to distract her, even if it is just protecting whoever wants to pay from people like _her_ , people who want to kill them.

She picks up a couple of high stakes shifts, guarding politicians and diplomats. There's an attack, some crazy with a knife, and she gets more satisfaction than she should from taking him down.

She wants to kill him, but that's not what she's there for, not in this job, at least.

But the adrenaline, the debriefings and questions afterwards, keep her mind off Ava.

Days pass, and why wouldn't they? She blew it.

Nights pass, and Ava is there every night, ending each nightmare in the same way, eyes wide open, blood pooling.

Her subconscious telling her that it's good thing that things didn't work out, that Ava would've gotten hurt.

She doesn't care. She wants Ava back.

She starts waking up earlier, working out more, more than she had before. Her muscles constantly ache, and the pain is another way to lose herself.

A couple of jobs in other cities come up, legitimate and illegitimate, and she takes them, spending nights in motels that don’t feel as empty as her house does.

She has always been eager to take the jobs that require her to travel, but now it’s like she needs them.

She needs to get out of the city, out of the streets that are hiding Ava somewhere.

Sara curses more than once the fact that she never got Ava’s last name. That she learnt everything she possibly could about the woman in the hours they had spent together—except for her goddamn last name.

She stays out long into the night, and goes to sleep late. She gets four hours of sleep, maybe five at a maximum. The less time she's at the mercy of her subconscious, the better.

The bartender at the bar where she met Ava comments on the dark circles under her eyes, and she snaps at him, and then, a couple of days later, sleeps with him, because why not?

She tells herself that she's not going back to that particular bar in hopes Ava will be there, but it's a lie.

Every minute she's there is spent with one eye on the door.

It's a spiral, and she knows it, knows it's irrational, knows that she shouldn't have felt anything this strong after the few hours so that they spent together, but it's tearing her apart.

A pretty brunette tries to drag her into a bar restroom, and she doesn't follow her. It's not the same restroom, not even in the same part of the city, but it feels like desecration. The girl pouts, and Sara ignores the aching between her legs, and turns away.

 

Then one night she gets blackout drunk, something that's pretty hard for her, something that hasn’t happened in years, and wakes up on her couch fully dressed, not entirely sure how she got back home. Her mouth still tastes of hard liquor.

She's not sure why she's woken up until her ears stop ringing, she forces her eyes open _—_ and she sees her phone inches from her face, its screen lit up.

There's a series of texts on the screen. Another one comes in, and the phone beeps cheerily in Sara’s ear.

Her vision is blurry, and she can’t concentrate on anything with her head pounding like it is. She groans, rolls over, and falls back to sleep.

Two hours later, she jerks awake, and her eyes snap open as she realises which phone it is.

It’s the cover phone, the one that, despite all of her attempts to forget Ava, she has kept with her everywhere she goes, just in case.

The screen lights up, and there, sent at 6:05AM, are a series of texts from a number she doesn’t recognise.

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _you stood me up, jerk_

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _and it was a total dick move_

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _but I also want to see you again._

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _because, apparently, I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to take a hint_

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _please don't make me regret this_

Sara almost drops the phone trying to reply.

 **SARA LANCE:** _Ava?_

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _Sara?_

 **SARA LANCE:** _who else would it be?_

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _sorry, it might've been the other girl I hooked up with in a bathroom two weeks ago_

If Sara weren’t in such a state, she might have laughed. There is the bite again, the evidence that Ava wasn’t going to go quietly. It makes her fall faster. She pauses before typing back, wondering at the fact it had only been two weeks. It had felt longer. It had felt like years.

 **SARA LANCE:** _I want to make it up to you._

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _really?_

 **SARA LANCE:** _yes, really._

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _...how, exactly?_

 **SARA LANCE:** _dinner?_

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:** _ok_

Sara sends Ava her address. Taking her out doesn't seem intimate enough. She can't bear the thought of being around her and having to think about people around them again. She's an okay cook. She'll manage.

Ava replies, quickly, and then they're talking for the rest of the day.

They're not back to where they were. Ava’s responses, after the first couple of texts, are terse, careful _—_ and usually just one word.

It would usually annoy Sara, this sort of standoffish behaviour, but this time, she knows she deserves it, so, as long as Ava keeps responding, she's going to keep texting.

Sara doesn't have anything to do that day, so she digs through the fridge and finds that almost everything is off.

She immediately clears it all away, sure Ava is the sort of person who wouldn't have a single thing past its date in her fridge. She's not sure why Ava would be looking in her fridge, but she doesn't want to risk it.

She goes shopping, dumping a load of produce in her trolley and hoping something will inspire her when she gets back.

On the way home, she almost swerves into the sidewalk when she gets another text from Ava.

It’s nothing, just a response to a joke Sara had sent, but at the end of it, there’s a smiley face, and Sara _should not_ be responding like that to what is little more than punctuation, but she’s imagining Ava smiling, imaging that smile that she hadn’t seen enough the first time they’d met.

Ava had been smiling the entire evening, the entire time they were together, pressed up against each other in that booth, and it still hadn’t been enough. Sara wants to drown in her smile.

After the smiley face, the responses get slightly longer. Sara can't help but feel like she's getting somewhere.

When she gets back, there are still hours to kill. It feels like the longest day ever.

She showers, washing the tangles and smell of alcohol out of her hair. The hot water does something to wash away the hangover trying to bring her down. Afterwards, she examines her body. There aren't too many recent injuries, just a couple of nicks, a few bruises.

Nothing that can't be explained by the job that Ava knows about.

She goes to her closet. She suddenly hates everything in there. Eventually she digs out a black dress from the back that doesn't seem utterly repulsive to her. It's not too formal, but just dressy enough to show that she's making an effort. Still, it doesn't really feel good enough. Nothing feels good enough.

This thing feels magic. She had always figured that she'd be single forever, that no-one in her situation could ever have anything, but now, there's a hint of something, and it's intoxicating.

(That's not quite it. She'd never thought she would _deserve_ something like this. But right now, with the prospect of seeing Ava again putting her on a high, she can almost ignore that.)

When the doorbell eventually rings, she's so keyed up she feels ready to explode.

Ava is on her doorstep, this time dressed down in a billowy shirt and jeans that make her legs go on for miles.

She smiles a small smile, and Sara almost melts.

“Is this too casual?” Ava asks, looking at Sara’s dress, her face twisting, the smile disappearing. “Do I look weird? Am I making this weird? Oh, god—"

Sara interrupts her. “No. You look great. You look beautiful.”

Ava’s hand goes to the button on her shirt, tentative.

“You look great,” Sara repeats, reassuring her. “But, like, I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be nervous, not you.”

 _You don't have anything to prove,_ Sara thinks.

“Right,” Ava says, but she doesn’t seem like she agrees with herself, her body language still stiff.

From then on, Sara is on eggshells. It's so incredibly delicate, and so she's much more cautious than she usually would be. She’s terrified that she’s going to say the wrong thing and Ava’s just going to leave, slipping through Sara’s fingers for the second, and surely final time.

So she chooses her words carefully, speaking slowly, gauging Ava’s reactions.

That is, until she doesn’t.

They’re eating, eating the one thing Sara knows how to cook vaguely well, and Ava is saying something, something about what she's been up to since they had met, and in the middle of a story, she says, “I saw this woman, this blonde woman, and I thought about you—”

“I haven't _stopped_ thinking about you,” Sara says, interrupting Ava, the words pouring out before she can stop them, before she can consider whether admitting that is the right thing to do.

Ava stops, her eyes wide. “You— you haven't?” She doesn't sound like she believes it. She shakes her head. “I thought when you left you were trying to blow me off. I've been spending the last two weeks trying to figure out whether to text you.”

“But I gave you my number,” Sara says, and she knows disbelief is evident on her face. “I _told you_ to call me.”

“I thought it was just a casual thing. I didn't text because I didn't know whether you really wanted me to. I don't know what texting etiquette is after you've screwed someone in a public bathroom,” Ava says, and she's blushing, covering her face. “Especially since you ditched me straight after. I thought maybe you gave it to me not to seem rude, so you could get out of there easily. I wasn't even sure it wasn't a fake number. I didn't want to text it and find _that_ out. And then when I did text, and you _replied,_ I thought maybe it was because you didn’t want to seem rude.”

“I gave it to you because I wanted to see you again. I replied because I _wanted to see you again_. God. You thought I invited you over here as some sort of courtesy? Do I seem like the type of person who gives a shit about courtesy?”

Ava considers. “No.”

“I needed to see you again. That's why I gave you the number. That's why I invited you here. Not any bullshit need not to be rude. Life is too short for that.”

“What for?” Ava asks, quickly.

“What do you mean?” Sara asks, her brow furrowing.

Ava stumbles over her words. “What did you invite me here for? Is it just— just sex? Because, if it is, then, you know, that’s fine, I can do that. I can do casual. If you only wanted to see me again for that then that's _fine._ And like, you know, I'd get it if that's all you wanted because I did kinda...”

“Make it about sex?”

“Yep,” Ava says, a tiny grimace on her face.

“I don’t think you’ve ever done casual in your life,” Sara says, and it’s just a guess, but Ava blushes. Then Sara realises something. “God, it didn't help that I invited you straight over here, did it? Fuck. I'm terrible at signals. Sorry. I just didn't want to have to worry about other people. I didn't just invite you over here to screw.”

“Really?”

“God, yes. I did grocery shopping for this. I never do grocery shopping. And, like, we’re eating dinner, so by default, this thing can't just be about sex.”

“Right.” Ava takes a breath. “So, not just sex, then?”

Sara leans in close. “Not _just_.”

“Oh?” Ava’s mouth falls open.

“No. Maybe breakfast as well,” Sara says, keeping her voice light, innocent. Keeping the double entendre that might have arisen out of her voice until she knows Ava a little better.

Just _thinks_ about other things she could be eating in the morning, instead of letting her tone suggest it.

Ava raises an eyebrow. “Tomorrow? Am I staying the night?”

“Yes.”

“Is that an order, Sara?”

“An offer,” Sara says, shrugging, like this _is_ casual, even though she’s just said it’s not. “If you don’t want to then—"

“I don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow morning.”

“Then it's a promise,” Sara says, smiling.

Ava's face, serious through the whole conversation, finally relaxes. Her body language changes. She's less guarded.

Sara knows then she feels it it too, knows that there is something there, and, somehow, they pick up right where they left off.

And then it's easy.

Hours pass, flying by. They're not talking about anything particular, they're just talking, and then, at some point, they stop talking.

Sara had made a promise, after all.

They don't make it up to Sara’s bedroom for the first round.

There isn't a single part of Sara that cares. She'd made sure that the house had ample couch space for a reason.

Ava falls apart, half naked and writhing on Sara’s couch, her face blissful, because if there's anything Sara knows better than killing, it's this. She knows that she's not blowing this a second time, no matter what she has to do.

Sara follows, minutes later, with Ava’s mouth on her, one of her hands over her face, the other intertwined with Ava’s. Her first time with someone has never felt this good. Ava's mouth is perfect. More than perfect. Exactly what she'd needed after two weeks of yearning—something as intense and personal as this. The gesture, the meaning behind it (I trust you, I forgive you) is almost as overwhelming as the actual physical sensation.

When she returns down from the peak, Ava pulls her up. Her limbs are still weak.

“Bedroom?” Ava asks, her voice low.

“Please,” Sara says.

When they're at the top of the stairs, Ava looks around. “Which room?”

Sara points behind them, at the door closest to them.

Once inside, the clothes that had been partially removed finally get discarded, and finally seeing Ava completely naked, smooth skin completely on display, is enough to make Sara immediately ready to go again.

She draws Ava closer, smirking, whispering in her ear.

Ava blushes, and Sara kisses the flush on her cheeks before pushing her down, finally getting her on the sheets she'd promised she'd take her to two weeks ago, before the League had ruined everything.

They wake up together in Sara’s bed. Ava leaves early, but not before Sara has had time to work her over once more.

Twice, if you count the shower. (Sara almost doesn’t, because it was too quick, Ava falling apart too quickly for Sara to appreciate the feeling of being together like that, but the sounds she was making during, and the look on Ava’s face after mean she has to count it.)

 

They see each other two days later, and then the next day, and the next day, and it’s clear that this is _something_.

Two weeks later, Sara is saying something in bed, just talking and not thinking, and she calls Ava her girlfriend and—

“Did you just call me your girlfriend?”

“Maybe. I mean, why not?”

(There’s a million reasons why not, but Sara refuses to think about them right now, refuses to think about them while Ava is laughing and smiling and leaning down to kiss her.)

 

And so a careful balancing act begins.

She tells the League about Ava, because things can only go poorly if she tries to hide her.

They approve, because anything that legitimises agents to the rest of society is good. A woman with a girlfriend and roots is less suspicious than a drifter.

She keeps killing, because that’s her job, and nothing is going to change that, but she starts hating it even more, hating it more than she had let herself hate it in a long time.

Feeling more than she had let herself feel about it in a long time.

But, at the end of the day, she sees Ava.

She sees Ava, and at some point, Ava says, “I love you,” her voice as hesitant as she had been the first night, apprehensive, as if she's not sure how Sara will respond.

Sara kisses her, says it back, says it back a thousand times that night in bed, until it's etched onto both of their minds, her repeating those words like a prayer until the words blend into each other.

They alternate, Ava’s apartment and Sara’s house, until they don't anymore, and Ava moves in. Having her there when Sara wakes up is better, and worse.

It's better, because she's deeper in love than she ever thought was possible, and it's worse, because she spends too much of her time lying.

She tells herself that she's not lying about how she feels, would never be lying about that, and it almost makes it better.

But she's still lying. She's still lying, and if she were less selfish, she never would've let herself get in this situation, but she's not, and she is, and she will die before she breaks Ava’s heart, so she's stuck, in the best possible way.

Nobody could complain about being stuck with Ava Sharpe.

Not when she pretty much single-handedly picks Sara’s life up from the shattered pieces it had become, and painstakingly puts them back together, healing wounds that Sara hadn't even known she'd had. Healing wounds without even knowing that they're there, because obviously Sara isn't telling her about all her League related trauma. Ava fixes her without even knowing she's doing it.

She makes sure Sara actually washes her clothes, so that Sara isn't having to guess constantly if things are clean.

She gives Sara a schedule, a purpose outside of killing and protecting people she doesn't care about.

She makes sure there's always food in the house and beverages that aren't just alcohol, and at the end of it all, is still loving Sara.

Sara remains sure it will end, that the elaborate web of lies she’s built up is going to come crashing down on her at some point, or that, worse, Ava will just fall out of love with without needing any of that.

But she doesn’t.

She doesn’t fall out of love with her even when Sara goes on work trips that take her away for days on end, people to protect (and people to kill) in other cities or foreign countries.

She doesn’t fall out of love with her when things go badly at the League, when Sara comes home moody and retreating into herself. She just kisses her, or holds her, or leaves her alone. Ava always knows the exact right thing to do. It's like it's instinctual.

Ava doesn’t fall out of love with her, and somehow, despite the universe having long ago convinced Sara that it would never happen for her, she ends up engaged.

 

When Ava proposes, they're at home, on the couch, and it starts with her turning to Sara, and saying, matter-of-fact, “We should get married.”

“Was that a proposal, Sharpe?”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe? You're not sure?” Sara asks, nudging her, teasing. “Did you just decide to ask me right this second? You didn't plan it? Doesn't sound like you.”

Ava screws up her nose, grimaces, pulls out a box. “I tried to plan it, but I couldn't find the right words. So I kinda just... panicked.”

Sara just stares at her, at the box, back up at her.

“Did I ruin it? Oh, god, I ruined it. Here, forget I ever said anything. I'll try again another day.”

“Don't you dare.” Sara shakes her head, almost laughing. “Just… ask me the damn question, baby. You haven't actually asked me.”

“Oh. Right.” Ava pauses, flips open the box. The diamond sparkles in the low light. “Do you want to get married?”

Sara shakes her head, and Ava’s eyes go wide, until Sara speaks, hastily clarifies, “I want the real proper question. I’m only getting this once. You gotta do it properly, Aves.”

Ava rolls her eyes. “Fine. But I’m not getting on the floor.”

“No,” Sara agrees, pulling Ava closer on the couch, her arm around Ava’s waist, until there isn’t any space between them. “You’re not going anywhere,” she breathes, their faces close.

Ava takes a breath. “Sara Lance…”

“Mhmm?” Sara hums, and Ava’s face is so serious that, again, Sara almost wants to laugh, but she doesn’t, because this is big. This is it, and it’s real, and Ava is already so nervous, and she doesn’t need Sara laughing, even if it wouldn’t be in a malicious way.

“Will you marry me?”

Sara kisses her. “Sure, Ava. Let’s get married.”

Ava smiles, wide and unrestrained and so utterly happy, and slides the ring onto Sara’s finger, her own fingers lingering on Sara’s hand, as if Ava is marveling at the image in front of her.

That hand had, of course, earlier in the day held a gun, and that gun had killed someone, because, of course, Ava chose to propose on one of the few days in the past month that Sara had killed, but that’s beside the point.

(It’s not really, is it? She lies awake at night, watching Ava sleep next to her, knowing that it’s not beside the point at all, looking at the small band of metal on her ring finger and feeling it tightening, her eyes wide open in the dark.)

 

Ava is almost always gone to work before Sara wakes up, and there’s always coffee in the pot when Sara reaches the kitchen.

She drinks the coffee, and then she kills someone. She drinks more coffee, and then someone else dies.

Sometimes she wakes up when Ava does. Ava got used to Sara’s unorthodox schedule pretty quickly, and she's the sort of person who actually _enjoys_ a 9-5 office job, so she doesn't seem to mind it when Sara watches from the bed, a grin on her face as Ava gets dressed.

Ava's work clothes are almost a uniform, dark pantsuit after dark pantsuit, and, somehow Sara never gets bored of looking at her.

Sara feels normal when she's buried under the sheets with Ava feet away. Then Ava leaves, like she does every day, and Sara is alone, and she feels less normal.

Normal people don't spend hours each day training. Normal people don't have a safe house half a mile away where they keep their weapons. Normal people don't wash blood off their hands in said safe house before they come home in the evening.

Normal people have a security job and nothing else.

And then Ava comes home, and when Sara has her under her fingers, hair loose and all of her rules out the window, she forgets.

Ava traces lines on her skin with her mouth, and Sara sees worry in her eyes when she comes home with purple all up her leg, or stitches in her arm.

“It's just the job, baby,” Sara says.

 _It's just the_ jobs _, plural,_ she thinks.

Ava nods. “I just hate seeing you hurt.”

“I'm used to it.”

“I'll never hurt you,” Ava says.

“I know.”

“Never.”

 

Sara almost lets herself forget that she is lying on their wedding day, but of course she can't quite, because the League’s backstory gave her parents, and so there have to be parents at her wedding. Fake parents, actors she hired the month before, actors she's been seeing every day to teach them everything about her life.

Actors mixing in with the small group of friends that they, as the normal couple living in the suburbs that Ava believes them to be, have acquired.

The only other lesbians this side of the city centre. An older couple, and their adopted, college age son. Ava’s personal trainer, and a few other friends from her gym. A couple whose height difference puts hers and Ava’s to shame. Sara’s moody boss from her security job, and his wife, far too cheerful and, if Sara was going to be truthful, pretty for him.

All normal people. People that Sara is lying to.

But that fades into the background when everything else comes together, when she's married, when she kisses Ava.

When they dance, she closes her eyes and prays to whatever might be out there that somehow, someday, she'll make this right.

Ava, of course, wears a suit, one with a little more tailoring than her usual one, the fabric black instead of her usual navy.

She wears heels, and towers above Sara. Ava brings them out so rarely that it feels like they’re back in the bar, on that first night.

Usually, Sara doesn’t like feeling small, but today it feels right. She wants to relinquish control, to let Ava lead.

Sara's dress is long, the sleeves down to her wrists to hide the scars that mottle her skin.

They spin, and she just about forgets the world.

Later, back home, because neither of them are vacation people, Ava kisses the exposed skin above the wide neckline of Sara’s dress, her mouth soft on Sara’s collarbones, before peeling the dress off of Sara’s body, white fabric pooling on the floor of their bedroom.

The lights are low, and Ava's fingers trace the marks left by the dress on Sara’s skin.

Ava hovers above her, still mostly dressed. Sara's fingers grip her lapels, pulling her flush against her body.

“I love you,” Ava says.

“I love you, too, baby.”

Sara reaches up, and after a second, Ava's hair falls out of the updo it was in for the ceremony.

Ava leans down, her mouth lingering over Sara’s for a second, then pulling away, instead working a path down Sara’s body, slowly and carefully, until Sara is shaking in anticipation.

Ava pulls her apart slowly, more slowly than ever before, working her up and up, so high that she is sure she will fall, but she never does, not until Ava finally lets her, and everything crashes over her at once, more intense than ever.

After that, Ava's clothes are discarded as well. The night gets darker.

The world narrows to the two of them, and, in the middle of it all, their hands are entwined, rings glinting.

In the early hours of the morning, when Ava is asleep in her arms, Sara is awake.

She twists the rings on her fingers, wondering if things will ever _stop_ feeling like a balancing act.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so glad ppl are liking this so far! if you do, comments and kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> (i think this is one of the weaker chapters bc it kinda has to fit a lot it in and i'm not sure how effectively it does that but like IT GETS BETTER i promise)
> 
> as always, you can find me @_avasharpe and directoravasharpe.tumblr.com
> 
>  _hopefully_ my first one shot in the summer of aus will come on thursday. hopefully. if not, there'll def be an update to this next monday! see you when i see you!


	3. somewhere between a minute and a lifetime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from fine line by mabel 
> 
> buckle up, kids. this is where things get interesting.

Time passes, and then, somehow, they've been married five years.

The years passed with relative ease, more ease than Sara thought she would ever do anything.

They fight, of course they do, because Sara is stubborn and so is Ava, if not more, and when they fight, sparks fly. Sara storms out, slamming doors, Ava just watching her go, her expression hard, arms crossed, or Ava gets mad and just stews, her anger not usually loud and performative like Sara’s is, but quieter, more devastating.

But they always fall back together. Sara apologises or Ava apologises or they both do, talking over each other as they try to say sorry, fighting to get the first word in.

Because when they’re not fighting, when they're just living, they fit together perfectly, more perfectly than Sara thought would ever be possible. Ava is always there, always there to catch Sara when she falls deep into spirals, loving her through the days where all Sara wants to do is drink and hide from the world.

Loving her even though Sara is always clammed up about why she’s feeling so low. Just being there, staying up late if she has to, to make sure Sara won’t disappear into the night—something that Sara, when she is at her lowest and most drunk, has managed to confess that she thinks about doing.

She’s never yet let slip why she would want to leave, not even when she’s drunk out of her mind, but on more than a couple of occasions she _almost_ has, before abruptly shutting up, clamping her mouth shut before she says something and ruins everything.

Ava never pushes for more details when it is clear Sara won't speak, just supports her, makes Sara fall deeper in love every single day.

With Ava, the periods where she is okay get longer. She goes days without thinking about her inevitable demise, goes weeks where she believes that, maybe, this won’t turn out badly.

And having someone that she has to be there for makes things easier, because sometimes Ava is a wreck, too.

Sometimes the confidence slips, and the anxiety, the worry beneath her skin comes out, and Sara has to be there for her, and so she can't lose herself, because Ava needs her.

She had always thought having someone rely on her would kill her, restrain her, drive her mad, but it does the opposite. It makes things better.

When Ava wakes up in the middle of the night mumbling about paperwork and work targets, her eyes flashing with worry, this worry she inexplicably has that she's never going to be enough, Sara is there to keep her from going under.

And keeping Ava afloat keeps Sara afloat.

She can't let either of them drown. They're tied together, and so Sara can't even let herself think of giving in to the whispers that still tell her that she'd be better off dead.

Because, even if long ago she'd accepted that that was the truth, Ava deserves more than that.

So Sara can't give in to the temptation, and this thing works. Somehow, they get five years in, and it's still working.

 

And though Ava stays the same, ever constant, ever steady, Sara does nothing but change.

Only in private, though. Because there isn't anything she wants to change about her life with Ava, how she is when they're together. But there is everything she wants to change about the person she is when she's not with Ava.

So she does. She takes even less jobs, she kills less people, and there is less blood on her hands.

It gets to the point where she can count the number of people she has killed in the last year on one hand.

They were high profile kills, took planning and effort and that's why the League didn't mind, didn't say too much about her withdrawing.

She takes less security shifts as well, because they're almost always at night and Sara can't bear losing that time with Ava.

It doesn’t matter. The kills were the type that poured millions into her private bank account, and it isn’t hard to transfer some of that into her legitimate account, make it look like she’s still got a constant source of income.

And so the lie stays airtight. 

 

One week, when they both have time off—Ava had been saving vacation time, and Sara doesn’t have any jobs (secret or not) planned for a fortnight—they finally go on a vacation for the first time in years.

The first time they'd gone on vacation together had been two years ago, a beach holiday. Three years in and they'd decided that, maybe, a honeymoon would’ve been nice, so they took a belated one.

Sara had gotten to spend two weeks straight spending all day staring at Ava in a bikini, and all night working out all the pent-up energy she’d built up during the day, and it had been wonderful.

Every so often, Ava had caught her staring, would call her out.

“You're perfect,” Sara had repeated, too many times to count.

"I'm not," Ava had always mumbled back, or something equally self-deprecating, looking down at herself, at whatever swimsuit she was wearing that day, always doubtful. Sara would see Ava looking at her own hands, arms, legs, knowing her wife well enough to know what she was thinking—that she was too tall, too ungainly. That her hands were too big and her legs were too long. Sara wanted her to see how stunning she looked. Wanted her to know that she was the exact definition of perfect, just by being her.

“You're perfect. You're fucking perfect, Aves.”

Ava had always just shaken her head, and then Sara would pull her back into their room, tug at the strings of the bikini until it fell away, and work into her until she was babbling, until she’d nod when Sara told her how beautiful she looked, how perfect she was, just by virtue of being herself, how lucky Sara was to have her.

Eventually, by the end of it, Ava had almost accepted without fighting the words that Sara threw her way. It had been good for them, so Sara is excited about taking another vacation.

This is a different kind of trip, though—a road trip, across the country and back.

Ava’s not very good at letting go, at going with the flow, so it’s been planned for months, every single part of it, nothing left to chance. Once, this might have annoyed Sara, but now she loves it, loves the certainty.

They take turns driving, and every second, Sara falls more in love with her.

One day, a couple of days in, they’re driving as the sun sets, and Sara’s not sure if Ava’s ever looked better. The car is lit up with pinks and yellows and oranges. The wind is blowing. Ava’s hands, where they rest on the steering wheel, are relaxed.

The road is empty, no-one for miles. Just them, a car, and open road. Ava turns, slightly, her eyes still mostly on the road. “You’re staring at me.”

“Yeah, because you’re beautiful.”

Ava smiles, shakes her head slightly.

Sara leans over, undoing her seatbelt. Ava eyes her, warily.

“Put your seatbelt back on,” Ava says, always a worrier, always safety conscious. “Sara,” she cautions.

Sara shakes her head.

“Sara..." Ava repeats, her tone a warning sign, but Sara isn’t listening.

“You’re beautiful,” Sara says again, pressing in close, her hands on Ava’s waist, on Ava’s leg. Her lips are close to Ava’s ear when she says, “Pull over, babe.”

Ava grits her teeth. “We’re half an hour away from our next stop.”

“It's not going to get farther away if we just stop for a second.”

“No, but everything’s so much easier when you have a bed, don’t you think?” There is finality in Ava voice, and Sara has been with her long enough to know when she has lost.

To know that today is not the day she finally persuades Ava to let Sara fuck her in their car. She sits back with an exaggerated huff, strapping the seatbelt back across her chest.

When she does, she sees Ava breathe a tiny sigh of relief, so small anyone other than Sara might not have noticed.

It was ridiculous, that worry she'd had, completely irrational, because Ava is an excellent driver, always has been, even when Sara is trying to distract her. They weren’t going to crash.

But still, Sara doesn’t mind it, doesn’t say anything about it, because having someone care for her like that, to be so worried about her even when there is no chance of danger, is something she’s still not quite used to, something that still buoys her, makes a warm feeling spread through her.

She spends the next half an hour trying to work Ava up. She stops trying to use her hands after the first couple of times, because Ava just swats them away, almost (but not quite) annoyed. After that, Sara just talks instead, her voice low, about all the things they _could_ be doing.

“...you could've already gotten off by now. Maybe twice… you could be feeling so _good_ , baby, come on…”

Ava, as always, seems impervious. There is no sign that she is affected apart from the faintest hint of pink on her cheeks.

Sara, on the other hand, is desperate by the time they pull into the parking lot of the motel, ramped up by her _own words_ and Ava’s apparent indifference to them. She does a quick check as they arrive, like she always does, scanning the place for danger, but it’s more cursory than it would usually be.

They check in, and the second they have their room, Ava pulls her in, her lips hard on Sara’s.

Ava lets out a sound as their mouths meet, a relieved sound, and maybe Sara’s efforts hadn’t gone to waste, after all.

Sara pulls down Ava’s zipper, her hand rough as it explores. She smirks as Ava gasps, want obvious.

Her efforts _definitely_ hadn’t gone to waste, then.

“I knew you liked that, baby.”

Ava just rolls her eyes, shakes her head. “You…” she says, before trailing off, because she’s smiling, because she can’t even pretend to be mad, not as Sara’s fingers are working lower.

Sara just smiles back, pulling them back together.

The room isn’t bad, not for motel-in-the-middle-of-nowhere standards, but Sara’s not paying attention to the decor, not as Ava is peeling Sara’s clothes away, and then her own.

Sara’s hands resume their exploration, a little harder and a little rougher than they usually would be, because she has so much pent up tension, and Ava isn't stopping her, isn't telling her to be gentler, so she keeps going like that, hard and fast until Ava is gasping and shivering.

Ava doesn't wait long before flipping them over, reciprocating, and then Sara stops thinking, because this is what she needs.

She has always found it hard to concentrate on anything when Ava is deep inside of her, and today is no different. She's driven herself so crazy with anticipation that her mind goes blank until she finishes, not able to think of anything but Ava.

Afterwards, lying there together, limbs tangled and sheets everywhere, Sara is almost overwhelmed. Ava always looks good after, but today it’s like she’s glowing. Sara reaches out, tucks a piece of hair behind Ava’s ear, and Ava’s smile almost breaks her heart.

“I love you,” Ava says, and even though Sara’s heard it from her a million times (a million times more than she thought she’d ever hear it from anyone), this time, something is different.

Not with Ava, but with Sara.

Something is different because, as Sara says it back, suddenly she knows she has to change, has to get out of the business. Knows that if she keeps going, now that she’s changed so much, that it’s going to eat her away from the inside.

She wouldn’t care, she didn’t _used_ to care, but now there is someone else who would get hurt if Sara truly let herself go, if she lets it consume her like she knows it's going to.

Sara makes a resolution, then and there, that she’s going to get out. She doesn’t know how, but she’s going to. And then she’ll tell Ava, and, somehow, it will all work out.

Ava looks at her in a way that makes it seem like it has to be easy.

They’re quiet, happy silence between them.

Ava smiles, moving closer, and then their mouths meet, Ava’s hands going lower, and Sara stops thinking again.

 

A couple of days later they’re home again, back to the real world, and Sara can’t even bring herself to feel sad, because Ava is by her side and that’s all she’s ever needed, all she’s ever _going_ to need. That much is clear.

She would risk it all for Ava.

She arranges a meeting with Al Ghul the second they get home, locking herself in the bathroom, her voice hushed as she talks to his assistant, tells her why she needs the appointment.

Later that night, after they’ve eaten, after everything is cleared away, and when there is nothing to think about but each other, they sit, pressed together on the couch.

“I think I’m getting a promotion,” Ava says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve been chasing this project down for years, and I got a call today saying it’s almost in the bag. If I get it, it’s going to be giant. They’ll have to promote me.”

“You’ll get it,” Sara says, certain. Ava is the smartest person she knows. Sara has never known her to fail at anything.

“Thanks, babe,” Ava says, and they fall together easily.

 

The days, as she waits for the meeting, roll by slowly. Ava seems to notice that something is off, and she watches Sara with worried eyes, but Ava is distracted enough with the big job she has to pull off, and so it slips under the radar more than it usually would.

Sara is glad—she doesn’t want to have to lie again, not about a meeting that will, hopefully, end all the lying forever.

So, at night, they are both restless, neither one of them really sleeping. They while away the hours talking about nothing in particular, fingers intertwined, and then, when it is time to get up and neither of them have slept a wink, they drag each other up, downing mugs of coffee and hoping for the best.

Her meeting is on a Saturday. Assassins don’t keep regular office hours. When she wakes up, early, she is surprised to find Ava up as well. With her job, she usually sleeps in on the weekend.

“What are you doing up?” Sara asks.

“Work needs me. The final deal is being signed on Monday, but they need me to look over it a couple hundred more times. I might be out late,” Ava says, and her voice is apologetic. “Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Sara says. “You’ll just be at your office, right?” Sara needs to know where Ava will be, just in case things go down badly. If they do, then her one priority is making sure Ava is safe.

She's been to Ava’s office a couple of times in the years they've been together. It has a feeling of safety in its normalcy, in the grey walls and quiet people that inhabit it.

Sara doesn't want to have to rush in and ruin all that, but if she has to, she will.

Ava takes a second, then nods. “Um. Yeah.”

For a second, Sara wonders why she hesitated before answering, but she dismisses it. There is no reason why she wouldn't be telling the truth.

“Okay,” Sara replies. “I’ll see you later.”

Ava leaves, smiling briefly over her shoulder as she does.

Sara leaves half an hour later, stopping by her safe house on the way out to pick up a weapon or two. The League doesn’t confiscate weapons. They have enough firepower to take you down if you try anything, and Sara knows this, but it still makes her feel better to have a gun tucked into her waistband, a couple of knives strapped to her body.

When she gets there, everyone is calm. There is a new receptionist. There is always a new receptionist. Nobody except the assassins stay with the League too long—they’re too much of a liability.

Sara knows what happens to them. All she can do is hope that that is not her fate.

Al Ghul is soft, well-spoken, like he always is. Even when he was doing his worst to her, twisting her mind, playing games with her, shaping her into the assassin he wanted to create, he had never been anything but polite.

He had been polite when he had sent Nyssa away, apologetic almost.

And now he is polite when he tells her that he understands, that he appreciates her coming to him. He tells her that she is out, if she wants to be. He tells her that she has served them well, done her time.

He tells her that all she has to do is one last job. That they had received information that a spy in the FBI had information about her, that her cover was close to being blown.

So the spy needs to be taken out, to protect Sara, to give her any chance of living a normal life, but also to protect the League.

They don’t give Sara a name, or a face, just a time, and a location, and the information that it’s a woman. They say that, when the time comes, the League will let her know who it is, but that she can’t know just yet.

(Looking back, that should’ve been a sign, but Sara is so giddy, so ready to be out, so ready to be in Ava’s arms again, and, one day, maybe, to confess when it is all behind her, that she doesn't think.)

The time is that night. The place is a high-rise building in the centre of town. The League is in her ear.

The gun under her hands is familiar. It’s one she’s used a thousand times before, and this time—her last time—it’s not going to fail her.

The time nears. She pulls her hood down around her face, trying to get some respite from the wind.

Minutes pass by. The hit is supposed to be at nine. The target is supposed to arrive, in a car, at the base of the building opposite at exactly then.

Sara checks her watch. 8:59. Her heart rate speeds up, beating out of her chest. She’s so close. She can almost taste the freedom. She can't wait to get back to Ava, to have part of the weight off her chest.

(The telling her part will take time. She has no idea how she's going to do it. But she won't be killing anymore, and that's the most important thing.)

9:00.

No car appears. There is no sound except for those of the city.

9:01.

9:05.

Sara presses her hand to her ear. “Where the hell is she?”

A voice comes from the other end of the line. “I’m afraid you’re on your own now, Miss Lance. The League thanks you for your service. Goodbye.”

Sara doesn’t have time to respond before the line goes dead. She doesn’t know what that means, doesn’t know if she’s out or if she’s not, and then there’s an explosion.

It knocks her off her feet, her ears ringing. She can’t tell where exactly it came from, but it was close enough for her to feel the heat on her face.

She needs to get out of there.

Sara stumbles to her feet. When she gets up, she feels a sharp jab of pain, and realises that there is _something_ sticking out of her stomach, debris from the explosion causing blood to spread across her shirt.

She had her escape route planned before she’d gotten onto the roof, and, from a quick glance, she can see that it’s still open.

And then she hears voices. Just a few, but they're getting closer. She doesn’t have much time.

Her ears are still ringing, so when she hears a voice say, “Stop!” even though she should recognise it, she doesn’t, not in that moment, because all the sounds are marred by the high-pitched whining she still hears. “If you take one more step I’ll shoot you.”

Sara turns, can’t see where the voice is coming from, and decides to risk it. She moves towards the fire exit, her ticket out of there, and is met with a flash grenade thrown at her.

She goes down, blinded, her hearing temporarily gone. As she does, all she can think is that this person, whoever it is who is pursuing her, doesn’t keep their word, won’t use their gun if they don’t have to. She can use that.

But when she tries to get up, she can’t, the pain too much. She hears footsteps, and she’s still mostly blind, her vision only just beginning to return. She can't hear anything. She knows from experience that it will be a few more seconds before that starts to return. Her hair is over her face, red blood matting it together.

She's clearly injured in more places than she realised. She must have hit her head. That’s another thing she’ll have to deal with. But not right now.

Her plan changes, moving her hand to the gun still strapped to her side. She had been hoping to get up, to try for a fair fight, but that’s not going to happen now.

When she tries to lift the gun, her stomach screams out again, the pain tearing through her.

She tries to lift her head, to sweep the hair away, to push her hood down or to turn and get a better view of whoever is walking towards her, but her hair and hood stays resolutely where they are, blocking her view.

With what little vision she has, still blurry, and in between the strands of hair that cover her face, she can just about see a woman walking towards her, her gun up. She is tall, blonde hair scraped off her face.

And the shape of her body is familiar. She looks like—

Sara blinks, shakes her head, trying to get the image out of her head. It can’t be real. She can’t be seeing what she thinks she’s seeing.

She squeezes her eyes shut, suddenly not even caring about getting away, because, surely, there’s no risk, there _can't_ be any risk—she has to be hallucinating, or dreaming, knocked out from the first explosion.

Her ears pop, hearing rushing back.

If it's a dream then it's more of a nightmare, because when the woman speaks, edging ever closer, saying, “Don’t move. We’ve got you now. Finally,” the voice that Sara hears is—

The voice that Sara hears is _Ava’_ s.

This can’t be happening. Sara’s mind races. This _cannot_ be happening. But then she opens her eyes, and her vision, while still a bit blurry, is almost back.

And she can see, clear as day, that the woman with her gun pointed right at Sara is her wife.

She's not dreaming, and this _is_ happening. 

It takes every fiber of her being not to fall apart, right there and then. She slows her breathing, and her mind is screaming at her to move backwards, move away, get out of there, to get away _somehow_. She tries, and it’s a stupid decision. At the movement, Ava pulls the safety off the gun, cocking it, and there is no doubt in Sara’s mind that Ava, that her wife, her wife who is at the same time an _accountant_ and clearly not, is going to shoot her if she doesn’t do something to stop it.

Ava doesn’t look uncomfortable holding the gun. Instead, she looks relaxed, like it’s something she’s held a thousand times before.

She looks like she’s doing her job.

“I don't _want_ to shoot you, but if you keep giving me a reason to…” Ava says, her voice firm.

Sara shakes her head, and some instinct tells her to keep moving, to try to save herself the pain that is so clearly coming. Ava hasn't recognised her yet. The blood on her face and the hood and the matted strands of hair are disguising her for now. But only for now. If she doesn't get out of there, Ava is seconds from discovering.

But there is nowhere to go. Ava's finger hovers over the trigger. The gun is not pointed anywhere that would kill Sara, but it would certainly hurt. She hasn't been shot in a long time, and although she knows she could deal with the pain, she'd like to avoid it if she can. She knows that if she moves, she's getting shot. Her mind goes blank and all she can think to do is shout, “Ava! Stop!”

Ava does. She freezes.

Her fingers still, a split second from pulling the trigger. Her face twists. Sara knows she’s recognised the voice, because how could she not?

All the colour drains from Ava’s face. Everything happens in a matter of seconds. She stows her gun away, kicks Sara’s away from her, and then she’s crouching down, shaking her head.

Ava pushes Sara’s hood back and sweeps her hair away, her touch on Sara's skin so gentle that it is jarring, and, the second that she meets her wife’s eyes, Sara knows that the world will never be the same again.

Ava opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

She backs away, still shaking her head. She looks like she’s about to cry, and Sara feels like she might, too.

“Ava, baby…” Sara trails off, her voice breaking. She doesn't know what she can say.

There's nothing she can say.

Ava recoils at the pet name, and Sara knows she shouldn’t have said it, but it just came out, because her brain can’t process what is happening, can’t process that all of a sudden she can’t talk like that anymore. Can’t use a term of endearment with a woman who has just discovered that she didn’t know who her wife was.

Another voice comes from somewhere nearby, calling out, asking Ava for an update.

Ava turns back to Sara, her eyes wild, and Sara can see her making a million calculations at once. Sara looks at her, trying to show an apology in her eyes, trying to make any of this right.

But everything is very clearly out of her hands, and that’s something, at least. She’s injured, her gun is out of reach, and all Ava has to do is open her mouth, and any number of agents will descend on her.

So all Sara can do is watch and wait, and she does.

It feels like an age, the only sounds the wind and footsteps of other agents. It surely can’t be long until one of them arrives.

Ava seems to realise this, and she seems to make a decision. She looks at Sara, pain evident on her face, more pain than Sara has ever seen on her before, and then she mouths, “Go.”

Sara does. She struggles up, pain flaring in her side, and she walks as quickly as she can, ignoring the stabbing sensation in her stomach.

She reaches the door. She looks back, for just a second, and Ava is looking at her, her expression shell-shocked. Her arms hang limp at her side. On the tips of her fingers, Sara can see a hint of red. Blood. _Her_ blood, from her face, from where Ava had touched her.

From where Ava had touched her for the last time.

Ava's body language is that of someone who is utterly, utterly defeated.

Sara forces herself to turn away, go through the door, and, a second later, is sprinting down the stairs, three at a time, ignoring the agony in her side.

Nobody follows her.

Ava hasn’t given her up. Yet.

She reaches the bottom of the staircase, and bursts back out into the cold night air.

And she runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say that it wasn't entirely a completely straight mr and mrs smith au...
> 
> as always, I thrive off comments and kudos! 
> 
> @_avasharpe/directoravasharpe.tumblr.com


	4. loving you had consequences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaand another surprise. It's not a one-shot! It's an update to this fic!
> 
> as an explanation, basically, twice in this fic you're gonna be getting an 'Ava interlude' but they are, by design, significantly shorter than the regular chapters. So instead of making you wait a week for like 1k words, and then another week for the regular chapter, theyre gonna go out on the Thursday after the main chapter instead of the following Monday :)
> 
> title is by camila, who, completely coincidentally, i saw this week lol it was SO GAY you guys i swear the majority of the people at that concert were gay

It feels like Ava’s world has just collapsed in on itself.

She watches the door slam shut behind Sara.

Behind the Canary.

The Canary, the assassin she’s been tracking for half her working life. The assassin who was a little more than a whisper, a ghost story.

Who, up until a year ago, they hadn't even been sure was a woman. Who was going to be Ava’s ticket to a promotion. Catching the Canary was supposed to lead to information about the League. From what they knew, the Canary had been recruited young. She hadn't chosen this. That was supposed to work in their favour.

She hadn't chosen to kill; it was just all she’d known.

They were supposed to be able to turn her.

They were going to do everything it took to turn her. Ava had known that, had known what they’d been prepared to do. Had known that there was really nothing they _wouldn't_ have done. But they had to find her first, and Ava had spent years doing research, following the most tenuous of leads, because everything she had read about this woman had convinced her that she was the one to bring the whole organisation down.

Ava had turned down operation after operation, had used every titbit of information she got to persuade her superiors to let her keep going. They very rarely ever got anything solid, just whispers and stories and deaths that almost, _almost_ looked accidental.

But it had always been just enough to keep the investigation open. And it was important enough, the subject matter dangerous enough, the enemy ruthless enough, to warrant the layers of protection that had been placed around her, a cover story and a cover life.

Everything had been fake.

Everything except Sara. Ava begged them to let her have her, this one real thing, promising that if her line of work ever put this woman, this supposed civilian, in danger, that she'd get her out, cut her loose.

And they'd let her. Reluctantly, because Ava's work put a target on her back, made her a danger to anyone she was around. But the fact that Sara worked in security had calmed their fears, if only slightly. She wasn't _quite_ an ordinary civilian. She would be able to defend herself, in some manner, if the time came, if she had to.

That was what Ava had thought: that she was ordinary woman with a bit of an advantage, just enough of an advantage to justify putting her in the danger that came from associating with Ava.

It’s obvious now that Sara is the furthest possible thing from an ordinary woman.

She’s a killer. _The_ killer. The one Ava has been hunting. She has the blood of hundreds of people on her hands.

Every single moment that they shared flashes through Ava’s mind.

How much of it was a lie?

The thought that even a single second of it was fake is more than she can take. It feels like someone has pulled the air out of her lungs, and she is suddenly gasping for breath, the rooftop spinning around her. For a split second, her mind goes blank, she forgets everything, and she reverts back to the thought that always rises when she panics: she wishes Sara was there, to help her breathe, to keep her steady.

And then she remembers.

Her hand shoots out, finds a wall to steady herself. The cold brick, rough and damp against her hand, grounds her, at least as much as she can be grounded right now, and, somehow, she takes a breath.

Somehow, she is still standing.

She plays the events leading up to this moment back in her head. The tip, filtered through too many firewalls to track. The second confirmation, this one from a reliable source, an informant who had never revealed themself, but who had proven themself over the years, that the Canary would be here, tonight.

The feeling of relief of knowing that over half a decade’s worth of work was finally going to come to fruition.

Getting onto the rooftop, and _feeling_ how close she was to getting her.

Hearing the Canary go down in _her_ quarter of the roof, the quarter she had chosen to take because, after all these years, Ava knew how the Canary worked, knew, from looking at the roof, where she would be, which section she would choose to make the hit.

Being so proud of how well she had gotten into this woman’s head. Realising that she would be the one who took her down brought her in, that finally finished this.

And then the Canary had spoken, and somehow the voice Ava had heard had been a voice she knew—the one voice she would know anywhere.

The voice she would know in her sleep, or half dead.

The voice that had said goodbye to her only hours before.

A voice that she might never hear again.

The thought hits her like a ton of bricks. Sara might just run. Sara _should_ just run. Ava’s given her a head start. There’s no reason for her to stick around, not now that Ava knows her secret.

Now that Sara knows hers.

She is still processing this when her agents appear at her side, their faces confused.

“I thought you had her,” Gary says. “Where did she go?”

Her mind races to think up a lie. She can’t possibly tell the truth. “She got away. I thought— I thought I'd hit her, but she was bluffing.”

The agents look at her like she's mad. “Why are you just standing there, then?”

They wouldn't usually dare to talk to her like that, but Ava knows the situation is ridiculous enough. She isn’t known for hesitating. This is out of character for her. Ava puts a hand on her side, twisting her face in faux pain. “She got me when I got close. I was catching my breath.”

Her lie is convincing enough, her voice firm and withering, that they don't question her further.

But it still sits heavy in her stomach.

“Which way did she go?”

Ava glances briefly at the door that Sara had escaped through hardly more than a minute ago, and makes a decision.

Makes the wrong decision.

Makes the decision that could get her fired, or even arrested.

Because what’s one more lie? She knows, as she is pointing to a door on the opposite side of the roof, that she is taking a leap of faith for a relationship that, in all likelihood, is dead.

A relationship that she should _want_ dead.

A relationship that she _doesn't_ want to be dead, that she desperately, desperately needs to survive. Sara is a killer, and Ava doesn't care. She knows the Canary’s story, and, in reality, she's never felt anything more than pity for her. The Canary was clearly broken—broken by the League, by her job, by her life—that much had been obvious, and Ava should've seen that in Sara’s eyes.

But she hadn't—or, at least hadn't realised that _this_ is what has haunted Sara for all the time Ava has known her—and maybe it’s too late. Too late to fix Sara. Too late to get her back.

But maybe it isn't.

The agents are telling her to move, looking at her funny, and so she does, with one last glance over her shoulder.

She follows them through the wrong door. She leads them away from everything she has worked for, and hopes it isn’t for nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update will be a regular length chapter, and will be Monday, as usual!
> 
> As always, I love love love hearing from you all! Pls leave a comment if you feel so inclined. Everyone was so lovely on the last chapter with the reveal, and all I can hope is that I keep making y'all happy!!
> 
> @_avasharpe/directoravasharpe.tumblr.com


	5. not your fault but mine (your heart on the line)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is little lion man by Mumford and sons. Fair warning, this chapter is very Sara heavy (and by that I mean it's 99.9% Sara), but it's necessary, I promise, and Ava will be back in the next chapter. Also it gets. pretty sad and angsty and dark. it's probably the saddest chapter but things get. better from here I promise.

Sara doesn't know how long she has, how much of a lead she's got on them.

If Ava doesn't tell them anything, then maybe she's in the clear. They don't know what she looks like. Ava has to be the only one who knows.

If they knew what she looked like, they would've got her years ago. If they knew what she looked like then that first day, that first day in the bar, would've gone very differently.

And if Ava had discovered any time before now, any time in the past six years, Sara knows that that would've been the end. Ava may have kept her own secret, about who _she_ is, but Sara knows that if she had known who Sara really was, she couldn't have kept up the lie.

She knows her wife well enough for that.

So they had to have been searching her down (unsuccessfully) until now. Part of her is buoyed by the idea that she had evaded them for years. Another part of her wishes she wasn't as good at what she does, wishes that all of this could've come crashing down earlier, before she'd got settled, before she’d thought she actually had something, had a chance of getting out.

But it _hadn't_ come crashing down earlier. It had come crashing down _now_ , and maybe Ava won’t give her up, but she can't rely on that.

Can't rely on Ava still loving her, because she knows that has to be gone.

Can't even rely on Ava still caring about her, even a little, not when she knows now how much Sara lied about everything.

So she can't rely on Ava not changing her mind and deciding to give her up. Can't rely on not being chased. She has to assume that they're coming after her, has to move, but she _can't_ , not quite yet, because there is the small matter of the wound in her side. It doesn't seem like it's terribly deep, but there is still something sticking out. She pauses briefly in an alley, considering her options.

She can't risk taking whatever it is out until she's somewhere she can sterilise it, but she also can't risk keeping on going without doing anything about it. If she keeps going without doing _something_ , at worst she’s going to bleed out, and at best she’s going to faint. She already feels slightly light-headed.

After a moment’s thought—because with Ava and her agents potentially on her tail, a moment is all she has time for—she shrugs off her hoodie, before ripping the sleeves away from her shirt with quick, precise tugs.

She bundles the fabric up, and having that pressed up against the wound, slowing the blood flow a little, is something, at least. With the hoodie back on, she looks slightly more normal, slightly less suspicious. There is still blood in her hair, and on her face, but when she pulls her hood up, you almost can't see it.

And she isn't going to bleed out, at least not right now.

But her legs are weak, and her safe house is back out in the suburbs, two hour’s walk away. Usually, she would not balk at the idea, would do it with ease, but now… now she is going to be slowed down by her injuries and she can’t risk being found.

So she needs to get away quickly, and she can't use public transport, because it’s going to be ridden with cameras. A taxi turns down the street, and, before she can think it through, consider whether it's the best option to involve someone else, someone she doesn't trust (but then, who _does_ she trust?) she's hailing it.

Sara gets in hastily, her head down, but he still gives her a funny look when he spots the blood on her skin. She reaches into her pocket, pulling out the wad of cash that is always there, chucking it at him.

“Promise to keep quiet about me and there's more at the end.”

She doesn't mind getting rid of it. It's League money, and she doesn't want to ever have anything to do with them ever again. It's hundreds of dollars, and he just nods and turns away, asking no questions. Still, she shrinks deeper into her hood. She doesn't want her face to be memorable if a $500 tip turns out to not be enough to persuade him to keep his mouth shut.

She gives him an address that is still a mile away from the safe house. Can't have him knowing too much about where she's actually going.

But when she gets there, throwing more money at him, she suddenly realises how close she is to home, to _their_ home, and she curses internally. She hadn’t been thinking, she had just given him any street that she knew was a decent distance from her actual destination, and in doing that, she’s ended up two blocks away from a place that is hardly even home anymore.

Sure, she still owns it.

Sure, it still has every part of her life there, every possession that isn’t a weapon.

But it also has Ava.

And she is (almost) certain that Ava isn’t hers anymore.

So anywhere that Ava is can't be home anymore.

The thought is so overpowering that, for a second, she can’t walk. She’s just standing, in the middle of the road, in a neighborhood where people could know her, bleeding.

It’s dangerous, and usually her self-preservation instincts would be kicking in, making her move, forcing her feet to start working again, but it’s like she’s stuck.

She can’t breathe.

Ava is her home. That, for the last six years, has been utterly, indisputably true. And now, all of a sudden, that has been taken away from her.

Her only consolation is that this is better than a slow ending, than a slow, painful ending where Ava simply… fell out of love with her over time. The ending that she had imagined, over and over again, in excruciating detail.

But that’s the thing. That ending, she had imagined. She'd imagined that ending, Ava growing tired of her, too many times to count.

She'd imagined that, or Ava getting killed because of who Sara was. So many potential endings.

She'd even imagined Ava finding out, somehow. But not like this. She could never have imagined this.

This ending… this sudden, shocking, heart-wrenching ending where Ava is the _enemy_ , where Ava has been _hunting_ her—this is entirely out of the blue. And that’s why it hurts so much. It’s the sort of ending she couldn’t possibly have predicted, prepared for, and now, it’s killing her.

It's _literally_ killing her, because when she looks down at where her hand is still pressed against her side, she sees blood seeping through the makeshift compress. She doesn’t have any time to waste.

With the threat no longer the abstract threat of being noticed, but a real, tangible threat of bleeding out, something in her makes her move, makes her put one foot in front of the other.

She hardly even remembers walking to the house. As she types in the code, leaning heavily against the door frame, her breathing more than a little strained, she hopes that the black hole where her memory should be is to do with being lost in her thoughts, with walking the streets on autopilot, in a daze—and not blood loss.

Once she is inside the house, the door closed, locked and double locked behind her, the bolt slid shut, she can breathe a small sigh of relief. She leans against the door, her chest heaving. The walk took more out of her than she had expected. She should've gotten dropped off closer. But she didn't, and she's here now, and all she can hope is that the extra distance added more of a buffer, gave her more of a chance of not being found, because, if it didn't, then she's just used up most of what little energy she has left for nothing.

Of course, there is a chance that they find the taxi driver, that he talks, that they search the area. But there are hundreds of houses, and this one has perfectly legitimate looking paperwork. The League had even employed people to come in and out, make it look like people lived here.

So, for now, it’s probably safe. Sara can fix herself up without much worry of being discovered. And then, when she is fixed, she will have time to think, to work out a game plan.

To let everything truly sink in.

But, right now, she has to deal with the wounds she’s managed to acquire.

It's a familiar process. Sara hasn't had to fix herself up many times recently, but it's the sort of thing that never goes away.

She spent most of her time training with the League injured in some sort of way. Ra’s was a big believer in violence as an incentive. She had gotten good at making the pain go away with whatever was to hand, at knowing what works for her best to stop the hurting.

Of course, now, she has a fully stocked medicine cabinet, first aid supplies perfectly suited for whatever injury she might have sustained, and doesn't have to worrying about making do, and that's a small blessing. She collapses in front of it, trying not to scream out as whatever is in her stomach twists.

There is anaesthetic in the cabinet, but there is also alcohol, and she needs something that will numb her mind, not just her body, so she twists the cap off with her teeth, only one hand available, the other still on her side.

The alcohol burns her throat, but works just well enough to take the edge off, just slightly. She sets the bottle down, then starts on her shirt, peeling the fabric away. The wound is bright red, gaping. She winces.

Sara almost wants to just use the whiskey to sterilise it as well, but something in her mind, a logical voice that sounds a lot like Ava, tells her that she keeps antiseptic there for a reason, that alcohol works, but not as well as the stuff that is designed for this very purpose.

For a second, she pettily wants to ignore the voice, ignore the part of her that it is still trying to pretend that Ava cares about her, that she would look out for her.

Sara grabs the antiseptic, giving in, tipping it over a cloth and roughly cleaning the wound, not caring about being careful, just about being efficient. It hurts, but it gets the job done.

The wound is not as bad as she thought it might have been. It's still bad, of course, but it could've been worse. Once the shrapnel is out, a piece of metal the length of a finger, once she has cleaned and sterilised the wound properly, sewed it up and bandaged it, she is just about out of the woods. For now.

She stands up, and it doesn't hurt _quite_ as much as it did before.

There's a mirror above the sink, and the woman who looks back at her, her eyes haunted, her fingers gripping the edge of the counter so hard her knuckles are turning white, is someone Sara doesn't recognise.

No.

That's not quite it.

She's someone who Sara doesn't _want_ to recognise. She's the woman from before, from before Ava, before she had something to care about.

Her eyes are hard. There is blood on her face, blood everywhere, her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, even her lips. She can taste it, taste the metal. She wipes at her face with the back of her hand, and it just makes it worse, smearing the red further, staining her. The tugging sensation on the skin of her face causes pain to rise up, and she remembers that there has to be a wound on her head somewhere.

Sara's fingers go to her scalp, searching for the injury.

After a couple of seconds, she finds it, a gasp escaping her lips as she presses down and pain lances through her skull. It's impossible to see with all of her hair in the way, but it doesn't feel particularly deep. It's probably just a graze. She’ll just wash the blood out of her hair and leave it. There's not much she could do even if it _is_ worse, wouldn't be able to stitch up a head wound with any sort of accuracy, so that will have to do.

She looks around. The bathroom is a mess. Blood stains the white tiles. It's everywhere. All over her clothes and her skin. She strips, tentatively, trying to avoid dislodging the bandage she had so carefully applied.

Washing the blood away, with a cloth dipped in warm water, carefully sweeping it over her skin, feels good. Cathartic. It feels good even if, the whole time, she is still staring at the spectre in the mirror, this woman she doesn't want to know.

This woman who stares back with dead eyes.

She washes her hair quickly, leaning over the bath, watching the water in the tub run pink. When she dries her hair, perched on the edge of the bathtub, the towel is dyed red with the blood she couldn't quite get out.

Wrapped in a towel, she moves to the bedroom. Her hair hangs damp on her shoulders, water dripping down onto unfamiliar carpet. She's never needed to use this bedroom before. The bed has never been slept in. But there are clothes in the closet, clothes she can change into.

When she is changed, there is another mirror staring at her. With the blood washed away, she almost looks like the person she had become, the person Ava had helped her become, and it's too much.

She wants to put her hand through the glass, shatter the illusion, but something stops her. Again, this voice that sounds like Ava tells her that she's just cleaned herself up, just stopped the flow of blood—and that she shouldn't open up new wounds.

The fight leaves her body, and she collapses, away from the mirror and onto the bed, her head in her hands.

With everything fixed up, with the blood washed away, there is finally nothing left she needs to do, nothing to distract her from the thoughts that having been trying to break through. Now that there is nothing stopping them, they almost overwhelm her.

Every bad thought she has had in the past six years, in the past twelve years, in the past sixteen since the League found her, runs through her mind, consuming her whole psyche.

The thought that she's too far gone. That she's unlovable, and selfish, and a liar.

That she's irredeemable.

That Ava is too good for her, has always been too good for her, and that it was a fantasy to pretend otherwise.

That she should've known it would end like this, that the universe would've never been kind enough to give her love, a happy ending, because she doesn't deserve it, because she's a monster.

A monster who lied to Ava for years, who has now hurt irrevocably the one person she was supposed to protect.

The thoughts echo until it's too much, until it feels like they’re physically there, weighing her down on her chest, and she falls backwards onto the bed, her chest heaving, struggling to breathe.

Tears aren't falling, maybe because she's too empty for that, too numb.

Not enough of a person.

Because what sort of person does what she had done? What sort of person lies to their _wife_ about everything for years?

When she hits the sheets, it is with the realisation that this will be the place she sleeps tonight. Not her bed. Not _their_ bed. But here, alone.

She can't help but leave a space on Ava’s side. It's stupid, but Ava has been on her left for the past six years, and sleeping in her spot would feel more wrong than anything.

It's still early, hardly even eleven, but she is bone tired from everything that has happened, and she falls asleep like that, on top of the covers, curled up small, confined to her side, feeling like something will happen if she extends herself into the space that is supposed to be Ava’s.

In her dreams, Ava is back with her, back being oblivious. Back smiling and loving Sara.

For years, she had dreamt of hurting Ava, of watching her die at the hands of a League assassin, or someone from a rival organisation, or, worst, at her own hands. Nightmares had always plagued her, but Ava had always been there when she woke up, so the pain they could cause Sara was limited.

But these dreams, these dreams of being happy, of things going back to normal, to how they were _before_ , are, somehow, even more painful than all the nightmares combined.

Sara learns that nothing is worse than looking back on what you've lost, not even the unknown of the future.

When she wakes up, a hand reaching instinctively over to where Ava should be, and instead she finds an empty space in a bed Ava has never slept in, she can't help it—she breaks down.

The clock tells her that it's 4am, but she knows that she's not going back to sleep.

Sobs finally wrack through her body, the first time she's cried, the dam finally breaking, and then pain rushes up as the movement twists at her stomach, tearing at the stitches there.

The pain is suddenly a stark reminder.

Of who did this.

And then she stills, the sadness rushing away for the first time, and, like a switch being flipped, it is replaced with something else.

Anger?

It feels like anger. Anger at Ava, for keeping this hidden. For setting off the explosion that tore open Sara’s stomach. For the ringing still in her ears, the slight blur in her vision.

The anger is unjustified of course, because Sara herself had done nothing but keep secrets, has done nothing but lie, but she can't help it. It rushes up inside her, spreading through her body like fire, burning away the sadness trying to shine through.

Anger is better, easier to deal with.

Sara knows anger.

She gets up, and the pain in her stomach is there again, but this time she hardly notices it, instead, it fuels her, grounds her, keeps her mind on the right track. She knows that if she stops for just a second, that the pain will rise back up again, against this irrational anger, so she doesn't stop. She makes herself food while checking all of the feeds she has in various local law enforcement offices. No-one is talking about her, but that almost doesn't mean anything.

Ava works for the FBI. She had lied as well, lied for years. She’s the agent Ra’s had sent Sara to kill. And her job—her job searching for _Sara_ —was secret enough to warrant a cover story, a cover story that was tight enough to fool the League.

So the fact that nobody is talking about Sara, that no low level police departments have been told about her doesn't mean she's safe.

It just means that whatever Ava is doing, it's off the books. Being off the books is dangerous. There is less accountability. Sara doesn't know what Ava wants with her, but it can't be good. Images of a cell flash through her mind. For a second she wonders if that's what she deserves.

For a second, she _knows_ that's what she deserves.

But she shakes the thought away. She's still angry, and then her phone buzzes in her pocket. The phone whose number Ava has, the phone that she has instinctively kept near her. The phone that she should've ditched as soon as she found out the truth.

Sara takes it out, and it's Ava calling, because it wouldn't, _couldn’t_ be anyone else. Ava's face stares out of the screen at her. The photo of her is one of Sara’s favorites—

Used to be one of her favorites.

In it, Ava is mid-laugh, her eyes crinkled as they look at Sara with love. Sara had caught her off guard, holding up the phone as Ava was lost in her laugh, and so it was truly candid.

The look in Ava eyes, as she gazed at Sara, is one that Sara already desperately misses, even as she tries to be angry.

But was that look even real? Ava had lied about who she was, but if what if she'd lied about more that? What if Sara had just been a cover? She hadn’t even thought about that until now, but it knocks the breath out out of her.

Anger bubbles up.

Sara almost picks the call up, her fingers moving on automatic, but she stops herself, just in time. Ava could track her like that. The realisation makes her blood boil. She throws the phone down on the granite counter, hears a crack. When she picks it up, the glass is splintered over Ava’s face.

She can't help but think, “ _Good.”_

But the call means Ava is still looking for her. That isn't going to work. She needs to get away, and she needs to know Ava won't try to follow her. Sara could just call, but she needs to look her in the eyes, know that it's over. It's reckless, but the second it's in her head, Sara knows there's no way she's going anywhere else.

She needs to see Ava again.

One last time.

That's what she's telling herself. That she will go to the house that was theirs, that she will tell Ava to give it up, and then she will leave. She has cash. The League will have shut off her accounts, but she has money, more than enough to get away, out of the country if she has to.

Before she can talk herself out of it, Sara is packing a bag. She doesn't need much. A few changes of clothes. A toothbrush.

There isn't anything in this house that is really _hers_ anyway. Maybe, before she leaves Ava, she'll take something of theirs.

Maybe.

Before the thought can overtake her mind, Sara turns to weapons. The ritual of cleaning her guns, strapping knives to her body, is calming. There's no way of knowing what she might encounter once she's left the city, left Ava behind. She probably puts too much firepower into her bag, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

There's a car that she keeps in a garage three blocks away, one that the League never knew about. She has it checked out twice a year. Its gas tank is always full, ready if they ever needed to escape. Because, it wasn't like Sara had never imagined she might need to get out. It's just that she had always assumed Ava would be with her.

That she would've told Ava, and somehow Ava would've kept loving her.

It was a stupid thought. Everything she'd convinced herself during their time together had been ridiculous. The idea that she could've ever told Ava, could ever have made it work, could ever have confessed and still gotten to keep her, is ludicrous.

She had seen the look on Ava’s face when she realised who Sara was. It was the look of someone who has had their life torn apart, who has just found out that everything they knew was a lie.

And, sure, Ava had let her go. But that hardly means anything, because now she's calling, tracking, searching—surely, she is back working with the Bureau. She must have realised her mistake in letting Sara go, and, now that she has come to terms with who Sara really is, she must have made up her mind.

Made up her mind against Sara, because who wouldn't?

Sara loathes herself enough that it is not difficult to imagine Ava hating her. It seems, really, like the natural progression of things, like this was the only way things were going to end, even right from the beginning. With Ava hating her, and Sara hating her back.

(Or pretending to hate her, pretending that that's the same thing, pretending just enough to make her angry enough for what she needs to do.)

She gets in the car, anger still coursing through her veins.

(It's more anger at herself, but she ignores that, tells herself that she is angry at Ava.)

It's still early. The sun hasn't risen yet. Their house is only a few more blocks away. The neighborhood is calm, like it's mocking her.

Sara parks outside, and for a second, she is frozen. Her fingers drum against the steering wheel. She’s unusually aware of the gun strapped to her thigh, of the knives and weapons against her skin. It’s like every sensation in her body is heightened.

She’s partly aware of the fact that she hasn’t had enough sleep, that she’s running only off adrenaline, that this is maybe a bad idea. But that part of her doesn’t seem to be controlling her body, and before she knows it, she’s out of the car, locking it, walking up a path she has walked up thousands of times before.

Her gun is in her hand, resting by her side. If there is anyone in that house but Ava, she’ll be ready. Her house key is still on her keychain, and she tries it, not expecting it to do anything.

Except it does. The door swings open, and she steps inside, slowly. The hall clock tells her that it is 5:30AM. Everything looks the same. It's been mere hours since she was last here, but she feels like it should've changed.

There should be some evidence that everything has fallen apart.

The house is quiet, still.

And then it is not.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sara sees movement. She turns, inch by inch. Ava is standing at the bottom of the staircase, hardly more than six feet away, dressed in a tank and leggings—her running clothes. Her expression is hard, her hair scraped away from her face.

In her hands is a gun, pointed right at Sara.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Ava says, her eyes stony. “That was a mistake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i almost didn't update today bc i'm in a really shitty place tonight but it was all written and edited so i didn't really have any excuse. originally there was a note here about how i've broken my writer's block on the other aus but i'm back to feeling bad about them and writing in general so who knows. hopefully there'll be an update to this next week but i'm feeling really bad about that chapter so it might be two weeks, or a week and a half. sorry guys.


	6. you walk like you're a god, they can't believe i made you weak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from halsey's strange love. i recently listened to badlands again and that entire album is so avalance like i'm not kidding.
> 
> this chapter and the next one were originally planned to be one chapter, but then things got long, so they're split. this part is _slightly_ shorter than the previous ones have been, but next is a bumper to make up for it.
> 
> warning: i'm not good at writing action so just go easy on me pls

“You didn't change the locks,” Sara says, lightly, like they’re discussing the grocery list, and not… here, in the middle of a standoff.

“It's been less than twelve hours, Sara. Anyway, I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to come back here. Now that—" Ava stops herself, her voice is still hard. Sara tries, and fails, not to care about what Ava was going to say. When she continues, her voice is emotionless, almost clinical. The voice of a government agent. “I didn't think I'd ever see you again.”

There is something about the monotony that makes Sara doubt, again, whether _any_ of it was real. She had just assumed that it was only Ava’s job she had lied about, but maybe— maybe all of it was fake. Sadness tries to rush up, and she replaces it with anger.

“Don't worry, _honey,”_ Sara says, almost spitting it out, her voice bitter. “I'm going. You won't ever have to see me again. I just came here to make sure you knew what a bad idea it would be to keep trying to follow me.”

Confusion flashes over Ava’s face, just momentarily. “Follow you?”

Sara screws up her face. “Stop playing dumb, Ava. The jig is up. I know you called me to track me. I know all about how people like you work. That's my _job.”_

At the mention of Sara’s job, Ava flinches, pain flashing across her face. All it takes is that, that one look, and Sara is back thinking that Ava maybe did care, at least at some point, and then, a traitorous part of her is wondering whether Ava still does. She shuts that train of thought down quickly, setting her jaw. Ava doesn't care about her. That much is evident from the gun in her hand.

“Or, it was, anyway. Not anymore. I suppose I’m a professional fugitive now, thanks to you. And if you keep trying to follow me, I’ll make you regret it,” Sara finishes, her jaw tight.

The threat is hollow. Sara could never hurt Ava, but all she needs is for Ava to believe it, believe it enough to be scared away from following her. And then everything happens so fast that Sara doesn't have time to think. Ava steps closer, opening her mouth to say something, and her hand is still holding the gun.

Sara moves back, instinctively, hitting the door. Ava looks down at her gun, as if suddenly remembering something. Her hand moves, moves towards the safety, and the only thing in her mind is that Ava isn't going to let her go, that Ava is going to shoot her before she lets her escape. Sara’s gun is up before she can think it through.

She pulls the trigger.

A bullet slams into the wall behind Ava. The sound is loud, so loud. There is a thin red line on Ava’s arm where it nicked her as it passed. Ava looks down at the blood welling up on her arm, then back up at Sara, shock on her face, mixed in with pain.

Sara hadn't been aiming to kill, and she's suddenly worried that she's shown her cards, shown that she still cares. She should take the time, take the pause and run, but she doesn't. The door is right behind her, but she can’t make herself move.

Again, she is frozen.

Ava lowers the gun. For a second, Sara is lulled into a false sense of security, and then she sees the anger (and something else?) in Ava’s eyes, sees that she's still aiming, that look in her eyes she'd always gotten whenever she was concentrating. Sara dives out the way just in time, a bullet smashing into the door behind where her knee had been a split second ago. She makes it into the living room, slamming the door shut behind her, pressing herself against it.

“Really?” she shouts. “You were going to shoot my knee? Low blow.”

“You shot at me first, Sara,” comes the reply.

“I didn't shoot _at_ you,” Sara says. “I shot at the wall because you were fucking _aimin_ g at me.”

There is no reply. Sara is confused for a second, before remembering that the living room does, in fact, have more than one entrance. She turns, and Ava is stepping out of the kitchen.

Sara ducks, just in time to avoid Ava’s second bullet.

“That was my head,” Sara almost shouts, anger boiling through her. “You're not playing fair,” she continues, before sprinting forward.

She's in front of Ava in seconds. Ava didn't seem to be expecting Sara to run towards her, not away, and shock registers on her face, as Sara is suddenly inches away. She twists Ava’s hand away from her body, expertly applying enough pressure to make it hurt but not break anything. Ava’s fingers clench around the trigger, and the gun goes off twice, shooting upwards, bullets burying themselves in the ceiling. Plaster rains down on them both.

Sara shakes her head, and dust falls out of her hair. Inches away, her eyes angry, angrier than Sara has ever seen her, Ava does the same.

White powder hangs in the air between them.

Ava steps back, the gun raised again, her stance firm, but when she presses the trigger again, it clicks. She throws it away, raising her fists, her eyes hard.

“Only four rounds?” Sara tuts. “Guess you weren't planning for this kind of party.” Sara mirrors Ava’s position, falling easily into position.

Ava surges forward, not wasting a second, hitting out at Sara. A couple of blows land, on her arm, her shoulder, and they _hurt_. There’s force behind Ava’s swings, and they’re carefully aimed. Sara hits back, glancing off of Ava’s bare arms a couple of times, almost meeting her stomach, before Ava lurches back slightly, pulling her stomach in, before moving back forward, closer to Sara.

They are too close, eyes locked on each other, arms and fists everywhere, and they’re more evenly matched than Sara had been expecting. Ava has been trained, and trained well, by the looks of it. She knows what she’s doing, knows how to attack and defend at the same time, knows how to hold her body to make it the smallest target.

It’s not surprising. The FBI would obviously train their agents well. But not as well as the League did, and, after thirty seconds of neither of them making much progress, Ava lunges for her face, her fist poised, and, instead of letting it connect, Sara twists, ducks, and manages to get a grip on both of Ava’s arms, pulling them at an awkward angle, holding her in place.

“I wasn't planning for any kind of party,” Ava says, shaking her head, finally able to talk in the brief respite.

“Oh?” Sara tilts her head. The sentiment momentarily confuses her, because Ava _was_ prepared for this, surely, with the gun she had had ready to greet Sara. Taking advantage of Sara’s momentary lapse in concentration, Ava pulls her hand out of Sara’s grip, punching her, hard, her fist finally connecting with Sara’s mouth, Sara not reacting quick enough to block it.

Ava’s blow is precise, practiced. Pain spreads quickly through Sara’s jaw, and the feeling is enough of a shock to pause her for a second, long enough for Ava to pull the gun out of Sara’s hand, backing away.

“I didn't want this,” Ava says, still shaking her head.

“Yeah, well, neither did I,” Sara says. “I never wanted any of this fucking mess, but you started it by aiming at me, so if you're going to shoot me with my own fucking gun, you might as well do it now.”

She puts her hands up in surrender. Ava looks surprised, like she wasn't expecting that, wasn't expecting Sara to give in. Her fingers fumble for a second, before finding the throwing star on her back. Before Ava can do anything, she's thrown it.

It buries itself in Ava’s arm, her gun arm and she cries out.The gun falls to the floor, skidding somewhere out of sight. That's fine. Sara's better with knives, anyway. For a second, Sara feels bad, looking at Ava’s expression, where it is still twisted in pain.

Only for a second, though, because then Ava’s eyes narrow, narrow further as they look down at the cut. Blood is already welling up, tracing a thin trail down the skin of her bicep. Sara is momentarily lost, staring. It’s strangely mesmerising. There’s a brief lull, a brief pause, while neither of them do anything.

Blood pools in the crook of her elbow.

Ava pulls the star out of her skin with two fingers, grimacing. The cut isn't deep. Sara can see that from where she is standing. Sara pulls out a knife, surging forward quickly. Ava drops the star, but reacts quickly enough to block Sara’s movements.

“I wasn’t... fucking... aiming... at you,” Ava says, in between gasps of breath, in between blocking and dodging Sara’s blows with the ease of an expert.

Still, even if Ava is blocking Sara’s jabs, she’s still being slowly forced backwards, back towards the kitchen. Sara feels like she’s just about got the upper hand, and then her stomach twinges, and she hesitates slightly, her movements getting less assured.

“Stop lying,” Sara says, gritting her teeth.

“I'm not lying,” Ava replies, before Sara loses her focus just enough that Ava is able to knock the knife out of Sara’s hands. A second later, Sara’s face is pressed against the kitchen counter, Ava’s hands on her back. Sara squirms, but Ava’s grip is tight, her elbows digging into Sara’s back.

“What are you going to do with me now, _honey?_ Cuff me? _Shoot me_?”

“I won’t have to do any of those things if you just stay still,” Ava says, her voice strained, “and go quietly.”

“I’m not going to _go quietly_ , babe. You’re going to have to knock me out or kill me if you want me to stop fighting.”

Ava sighs, hesitates for slightly too long, and the pressure on Sara’s back eases up just enough for her to twist up, to get out from under Ava’s grip. Briefly, Sara thinks she can get away, and then she feels a kick to her stomach, right where her bandage is, and she crumples as she feels the stitches tear, agony ripping through her. She looks up at Ava. She is just standing there, a kitchen knife that Sara recognises as being from the block on their counter in her hand, looking like Sara’s worst nightmare.

Sara doesn't know why Ava isn't moving, why Ava isn't doing _something._

The knife gleams in the low light, the blade sharp. Ava had always kept their knives sharp. That was coming in handy now, at least for one of them.

 _“_ What the hell are you waiting for, Ava? If you want to kill me, now's your chance.” Sara smiles, weakly. “That's a good knife for it. It'll be quick, baby.” She closes her eyes briefly. She can almost feel the blade on her skin, pressing in, ending it. Ava ending it.

She opens her eyes, and Ava moves closer.

Sara backs away. There are still half a dozen knives strapped to her body, various other weapons in her pockets, but she can't reach them, because one hand is braced against the island to stop her legs from giving away, and the other is pressed to her side. If she lets go of either, she knows she's going to collapse.

She's helpless.

Maybe she had been too optimistic when she’d said Ava would need to get her unconscious to take her down. Sara’s in no fit state to keep fighting. Ava keeps moving, keeps moving forward, and then the island runs out, and Sara has nothing to hold her up anymore. Her legs are weak. She sways, feeling seconds away from buckling, and then Ava is pressed up against her again, pushing Sara back until she collides with their fridge.

She never knew Ava was this strong. She's holding Sara up with ease, holding her up so that their eyes are level, so that Sara is standing on her tiptoes.

Ava has the knife at Sara’s throat in seconds. Her eyes are blazing. The knife is cold on Sara’s skin.

“I don’t want to kill you. I didn't aim at you. I was turning the safety _on,_ you idiot.”

Sara's eyes narrow. “What?”

“I turned it off when someone broke into my house at 5:30AM. I was turning it back _on_. I wasn't going to shoot you.”

“No,” Sara says. Ava is looking right at her, her gaze intent, but then there's nowhere else to look. Their faces are inches apart. “No, you were going to shoot me because I told you I was leaving and you'd rather have me dead than let me escape,” she spits out.

Sara has to believe that. It's the only thing that makes sense.

Ava sighs, rolling her eyes. “Why do you think I called you, Sara?” Her voice is exasperated.

“To track me.”

“To tell you to run,” Ava’s voice is almost soft, and Sara can't bear it.

“Stop lying.”

“God, Sara, I'm not lying.” But Ava’s words are punctuated by her pressing the knife in closer, and Sara feels the first bite of pain as it nicks her skin. Sara doesn't believe her. The pain doesn’t let her believe her. Her anger fuels her, lets her ignore the agony in her side for just a second, and that's all she needs to wrestle the knife from Ava’s grasp.

Sara manages to scrape her own arm in the process, blood welling up quickly, pain rushing through her, but she has the knife, and Ava is unarmed, and that's what matters. Ava steps back, and it is her turn to put her hands up, but Sara doesn't trust that, not when she'd pulled the same move minutes ago. But she knows she can't aim well enough to throw a knife, not with the new pain in her arm (and she wouldn’t want to throw something so potentially lethal, anyway) so she pulls something out of her pocket that requires a little less precision. Ava’s eyes widen as she sees what is in Sara’s hand.

Something catches Sara’s eye. Her gun is on the floor, under the counter but just in reach, and she ducks, quickly, ignoring the pain when she bends, picking it back up. Now she has two weapons. She pulls the pin out of the grenade in her hand, and throws it, before escaping through the doorway into the hall. Out of the corner of her eye, before the door slams shut, she sees Ava dive out of the way.

That was what Sara wanted—for Ava to see what she was doing and the get the hell out of the way, away from Sara. The explosion is not particularly loud. It wasn't designed to be a big blast, just a distraction. Just enough of a distraction to let Sara get out, away from Ava.

“Did you just blow up our kitchen?” comes Ava’s voice, sounding incredulous, the tone obvious, even muffled by the closed door.

“It's _my_ kitchen,” Sara says, struggling down the hall, her hand against the wall, trying to get to the door. “It's my house.”

“Or is it the League’s house?” Ava shouts. “You never told me how you paid for such a nice place.”

“Don’t act like you didn't like it. You got to live here for free.”

“I suppose I should've known you were too good to be true,” Ava says. There is a hint of sadness in her voice, like the fight has gone out of her, and then she steps out into the hallway, blocking Sara’s path to the front door. She's holding a gun. Sara doesn't recognize it. It must be a new one. Ava must have stashed a couple around the house.

They certainly weren't there before. Ava must have left them after she got home last night. After she had found out who Sara really was. She must have realised that Sara coming back was a possibility, and Sara doesn't dare hope that Ava prepared like this for any reason other than to take her in. Or to kill her.

Why else would she have weaponized their home?

Ava is staring at her, frozen. “I should've known…” she says, and her voice is defeated.

Sara just looks at Ava, raises her own gun, mirroring Ava’s pose, shaking her head. At the sadness Ava’s voice, Sara’s anger almost dissipates. Almost. It is still there, an undercurrent.

“What the hell do we do now?” Sara asks. Her hand is steady, but it's a struggle to keep it that way. Her chest heaves. The cut on her arm is leaking blood. The older gash on her stomach, ripped back open by the action, is bleeding through its bandages.

“I've got no fucking clue,” Ava admits. Her voice is hopeless. She wipes hair out of her face. Her skin is shiny with sweat. Sara notices that she's still wearing her wedding ring.

Of course, so is Sara, but Ava… Ava shouldn’t be.

Maybe she has just forgotten that it’s still there.

Neither of them moves. Their guns stay where they are, pointed at each other.

There is silence.

For a minute.

For two minutes.

The only sound is the clock ticking.

Then Ava sighs. Seems to come to a conclusion. “Don't— don’t shoot. Just let me talk.”

Sara considers for a second, and then she nods, because there's no escape—her stomach is still killing her, and, no matter what she might try to tell herself, she's not going to be able to use the gun to actually hurt Ava.

It's not a real standoff. Ava has the upper hand, even if she doesn't know it. So if Ava wants to talk, letting her can't hurt. Can only give Sara time to figure out an escape plan. Sara just has to hope it's not a bluff, that Ava isn't going to pull the trigger on the gun she's holding.

“I didn't call you to track you. I called you because I wanted to tell you to leave, to get the hell out. Sure, the _Bureau_ is still tracking you, but not me, not anymore, and I—"

Ava stops for a second, choking up, and Sara isn't sure from this distance, but her eyes look shiny, wet from tears welling up.

“I couldn't bear to see you taken in, not like that, even after what you've done.”

Ava doesn't sound like she's lying. Her voice is earnest, cracking slightly, wavering between words. If it's an act, it's a good one. Sara used to be good at spotting liars, but now she can't tell. Ava had been lying their whole relationship; Sara doesn't have a baseline for what her truth sounds like.

But maybe it sounds something like this.

“And, God, that's why I let you go on that fucking roof, Sara! Why would I want to kill you when I just risked my entire career to let you go?”

Sara shrugs, her mouth dry. She swallows, trying to find the words. “That was a gut reaction. You've had time to think about it now. I figured you'd made up your mind about me, and wanted me dead. It's not a difficult conclusion to come to. I lied to you about everything. I'm an _assassin_ , Ava.”

“You thought I'd thought about it for less than a day and decided I didn't care about you anymore?” Ava asks, and her voice is disbelieving. “And not even just that? That I wanted to _kill_ you?”

“That's not so hard to believe. I'm a murderer.”

“I _married_ you, Sara. I've loved you for more than six years. You can't just turn that off like that.”

“You can if it turns out your wife is an assassin.”

“But you didn't have a choice, Sara,” Ava says, her voice quiet, calming, gentle—but still with force behind it.

“What?” Sara says, so quietly it's almost a breath. It's like that one sentence has stunned her. “No.”

“I researched you for years, Sara. You didn't have a choice. You didn't choose this.”

All it takes is three sentences coming out of Ava’s mouth, impossibly soft, and Sara is broken, and the anger is gone. The anger that was never really there in the first place. All that is left is the sadness, the longing, that has been there the whole time, disguising itself as anger to keep Sara from drowning in it.

The longing that brought her back here, to Ava. That had brought her back, even while her mind told her to run.

The longing that wants to believe that Ava still wants her, even while her mind tells her she doesn’t deserve that.

“No, I— I chose to stay— I had every chance to leave and I just— I didn't take it because I didn't— I didn't deserve anything more than that life, I didn't deserve you and I shouldn't have pretended I ever did—" Sara’s voice is frantic, the words coming out in a rush.

Ava moves closer, shaking her head. “I know how the League works, babe,” she says, her voice firm.

The term of endearment is like a knife to the heart.

“I knew everything about you except who you were. I know what they did to your girlfriend. I know what they did to your family. I know what they did to every person who ever tried to leave.”

And then Ava stops, like she's realising something.

When she speaks again, her voice is slow. “If people try to leave, they kill them, or worse. I got a phone call. An anonymous tip. God. It had to have been from the League. Is that why all this happened? Did you try to leave?”

Ava's voice is so calm, so gentle, that all the fight, the tiny bit of fight that was left, goes out of Sara’s body. She feels herself slump slightly, tension easing away.

Ava is suddenly almost close enough to touch. Sara looks at her. Nods. Then her stomach flares up, and she wobbles, stepping forward, closer to Ava on instinct. She realises a second too late that she can't (shouldn’t) go to Ava for support, and, instead, finds the surface of their hallway table to lean on. As she slumps against the table, releasing her grip on the gun so that she can steady herself more, her hands stain the bills that are still laying there.

Dark red fingerprints against stark white paper. Letters addressed to Mrs and Mrs Sharpe, mixed in with Mrs and Mrs Lance, because neither of them had changed their names, and nobody could seem to get that.

They’d made bets on who would end up with more letters, a million years ago, when things were normal.

Ava had been winning. It’s a stupid thing to be noticing and remembering right now, but Sara does, as she ruins the letters with her own blood. Then she looks up again. Ava’s expression is hopeful, and it’s too much.

“But, God, Ava it doesn't _matter_ if I tried to leave. I worked for them for— I worked for them for years. Trying to leave doesn't— negate years of killing. I need to go. I have to go. You have to let me go.”

Sara realises that she's crying. She never cries, and now Ava's had her breaking down multiple times in hours. She kind of hates it, kind of loves knowing she still has the capacity to feel like that.

Ava sets her gun down next to Sara’s, shakes her head. Her hands move upwards. Her lips part, and she breathes out, “Sara,” like it's a prayer, and then her fingers are reaching out, stroking briefly through Sara’s hair. Sara’s hand shoots out, catching Ava’s, pulling it away.

“No, Ava, I don't— I don't deserve this. You. I don't deserve you. I lied to you. For years. About everything.”

Ava just shakes her head, repeats Sara's name again, and then, before Sara knows what's happening, she's pulling Sara in, pulling her close. Sara automatically tries to push Ava away, her hands going up, fists filling the space between them, creating a barrier. Ava carefully removes them, and Sara doesn't have the energy to resist, just tries to shy away, but Ava doesn't let her, her arms strong as she wraps them around Sara, hugging her. And, against every instinct telling her to pull away, Sara doesn’t. Instead, she lets Ava hold her.

Sara's eyes close, the tears still falling.

She feels the press of lips on her forehead, so soft it's barely there, and she pulls away, slightly, so that she can look up at Ava’s face.

“You really tried to leave?” Ava asks, again.

There is no point lying, or pushing Ava away anymore. The part of her that is telling her they're over is still there, but there is a tiny part, the smallest of lights at the end of the tunnel, that is telling her that maybe, just maybe, they've got a chance.

“For you,” Sara says, simply. “Always for you. I never lied about that.” She can’t help but lower her eyes again, because Ava’s gaze is so intense, searching for answers in the depths of Sara’s soul, answers Sara isn't sure she has.

“So… what we had... that was real? I wasn't just a cover?”

Sara’s eyes snap back up. “God. Ava. No. I loved you from the first time I met. It was always real. You thought— you thought it wasn't? You thought that?”

“When you turned up here guns blazing… I thought that now your cover was blown, you didn’t need to pretend anymore, didn’t need to pretend you’d ever loved me. That’s why I fought back, Sara, even if it almost killed me. I thought you wanted me dead.”

“No. No. Ava. No.” Sara shakes her head. “I still love you, Ava,” she says, and it almost hurts to say it, because, even if she now believes Ava when she says she doesn't want Sara dead, that's far from confirming that Ava still feels how she used to. That she still loves her back.

So admitting it to Ava feels like a leap of faith. One that she willingly takes, but that still terrifies her a bit.

But then Ava smiles. It's the smallest of smiles, but somehow hopeful, and she just says, “Okay.”

And then Ava kisses her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew okay you'll be happy to know that there is not much more action since i cannot write it lmao. we are back to mostly just Feelings for most of the rest lol (with a lil bit of action but not This much)
> 
> i'm still not 100% happy with this chapter but i just gotta post it because otherwise i never will. thank you so much for all the support after the last chapter, though, it really meant a lot. i think the other aus are on hold for now. i've got some other fic i'm writing that isn't au that i might post on thursday instead.
> 
> with this, we've finally tipped over the halfway mark of the fic! there's so much good stuff to come wow like i definitely think the second half is stronger than the first half so hopefully y'all agree with me
> 
> (sorry not sorry for the cliffhanger see you in a week)
> 
> @_avasharpe/directoravasharpe.tumblr.com


	7. if you were church, i'd get on my knees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check end notes for some sex related warnings. absolutely **not** dubcon or noncon or anything even _remotely_ close, but something that could _maybe_ have the potential to be triggering, so i'm hedging my bets. 
> 
> title is from church by fall out boy. i listened to all of the songs i've used as titles while writing, but none of them quite as much as this song. this song was on repeat for honestly the entire time i wrote the first draft of this chapter.

Ava kisses her, and her mouth feels like home.

Like heaven.

Like absolution.

One of Ava’s hands stays wraps around Sara’s waist, holding her up. The other moves up, cupping the side of her face. Ava's lips fall open, and Sara can't help but press in, hungry for this, hungry in a way she's never been before. She's desperate, drowning, her hands on the back of Ava’s head, pulling her in as close as possible. Hardly an hour again she was certain this was lost forever, and now?

Now Ava’s hand is tangled in her hair, pulling just tight enough that the message is clear, that Sara is _hers_ and that if she dares move away, there'll be trouble.

Sara isn't going to complain. She doesn't want to leave Ava’s lips ever, and there is, maybe, need pooling, need that, if she's honest, might have been there since the second she saw Ava again, need that's she's been pointedly ignoring.

And then Ava’s hand moves slightly, slipping underneath the fabric of Sara’s shirt, rubbing circles over the skin on the small of her back, and the need is definitely, one hundred percent there. Sara moans, the tiniest sound escaping, because it feels so good, that simple touch, so caring and soothing and something Sara didn't think she'd ever have again.

Ava pulls away, just for a second. “Are you okay? Am I hurting you?” Her voice is so filled with worry that it breaks Sara’s heart, because Ava has it all wrong. She shouldn’t be the one worrying about hurting Sara.

That’s Sara’s job. For as long as Ava lets her.

Even if as long as Ava lets her is just today.

Sara closes her eyes, not pushing the thought down but just… accepting it. She's going to make the most of what she can get, whatever Ava is going to give to her, and she's going to be grateful for every second.

“No,” Sara says, shaking her head. “No. That was a good sound. Just kiss me again. Please, Ava.”

Sara knows that her voice is bordering on desperate. She can't help it. Ava looks at her, her pupils dilating at Sara’s words, and does, kissing Sara slowly, languidly. Kissing her until she's gasping for breath, until a whine escapes from the back of Sara’s throat, another needy sound.

Ava groans, pulls away, her hand on Sara’s face.

“I shouldn't,” Ava says, and it's a whisper, almost inaudible. Almost as if she's talking to herself. She's not looking at Sara, her eyes cast down. Their foreheads almost touch.

Her eyelashes are long, brushing against the skin of her cheek. She's perfect, but then she always has been.

“Shouldn't what?” Sara asks, after a pause, after it is clear Ava isn't going to elaborate.

Ava’s eyes snap up, confused, as if she really hadn't known she had spoken out loud. As if she had been lost in her own world.

Sara's palm finds Ava’s cheek. “Baby?” she asks, her voice earnest.

Ava doesn't respond straight away, just sighs, shakes her head, and pushes Sara backwards so she is properly leaning up against the table, kissing her again, hard. Then her lips leave Sara’s, moving downwards, tracing a line down her throat. As she does this, Ava speaks, her voice low. “Can you walk?”

“Shouldn't what, Ava?” It’s hard to get the words out with Ava’s mouth on her skin, but she just about manages. Her hands grip onto the edge of the table, her knuckles going white. “Because if you mean this, if you don't want to be doing this, then you need to st—"

“God, shut up,” Ava says. The sudden harshness in her voice shocks Sara. Shuts her up immediately. And then she realises that there is something else in Ava’s voice, something familiar.

Something that makes the hairs on the back of Sara’s neck stand up. But she can't get a look at Ava’s face to try to work it out, because Ava’s mouth is still on her neck, every word she speaks vibrating through Sara’s body.

“Can you walk or not?”

Sara just hums in response, distracted by the feeling on Ava on her skin.

“Is that a yes or a no, Sara?” Ava asks, frustration evident in her voice.

Frustration tinged with—

No.

She's not thinking it. She's lucky she's getting this.

“Why do you need to know?” Sara asks, her voice almost a whisper.

Ava pulls back, her lips leaving Sara’s neck, and, finally, Sara can see her face. And yet, there's still no answers. Ava reaches out a hand, cards through Sara’s hair again, the gesture impossibly fond, and, this time, Sara doesn't stop her.

“Because we can only get upstairs if you can walk,” Ava says, matter-of-fact. “If you can't, I can only get you as far as the couch.”

“And what— what are we doing once we get where we’re going?” Sara asks, still not daring to assume.

Ava smiles, and her expression is far too innocent for the words that come out of her mouth next. “I'm going to fuck you.” Her voice is dripping with the lust that Sara hadn't dared to believe was there.

Ava is never usually that crude. That is usually Sara’s style, but the tone is almost not a surprise. Not right now. Not when they were shooting at each other minutes ago. Even so, even if it shouldn't really be a surprise, Sara's mouth still falls open at the words, the language stirring arousal in her. Ava kisses her again, this time all tongue and teeth and not careful at all.

When Ava pulls away, Sara knows her face is flushed. Ava raises an eyebrow. “Well? Where’s it going to be?”

Sara experimentally puts more pressure on her legs. She winces, and Ava’s face twists with worry again.

“If you can't move at all, I can work with this,” Ava says, eyeing the table. “I just need to feel you. Somewhere. Anywhere.”

Sara can hardly stifle a groan. Her hands find Ava’s face. “God, I love you.”

“Are you just saying that because I'm trying to get you naked?”

“No. I love you. Even when you're not trying to get me naked. Even before, when I thought you wanted to kill me. Always.”

Ava’s smile falters slightly at the mention of what they were doing only minutes ago. So Sara kisses her again, dropping kisses on her lips in between words. “No—babe—I'm sorry—don't—think—about that.”

“No. It's fine. I just don't to ever make you feel like that again,” Ava says. “Feel like I wanted to hurt you.”

“How do you want to make me feel?” Sara asks, her voice low, fishing for Ava to say the what she wants to hear, to say _more_ of what she wants to hear.

Ava grips Sara’s hips pointedly. “Good. And I don't care where I do it.”

That does it. Those words are more than enough.

Everything she is saying is driving Sara wild, and for a second, Sara is imagining sitting on the blood-stained mail, Ava’s head between her thighs, but then she shakes her head, because she wants that, but more than that, she wants soft sheets and a bed. _Their_ bed. “I think I can just about walk, if you help me,” she says, trying to hide the want in her voice.

Ava nods, and Sara can't help but lean back in, their mouths finding each other again.

Their progress is slow. Sara is scared to walk too fast, because every wrong step causes pain to radiate out from her side, but also because she's scared of moving too quickly and breaking the kiss.

She needs to stay like this, with Ava’s fingers on her face, softer than they have any right to be after the words that had just come out of Ava’s mouth. Those words, crude and harsh and unforgiving—they fit the situation. Sara can work with the idea of getting _fucked_. But this—soft fingertips stroking over her cheeks, slow and gentle and caring—this, she can't quite compute.

But that doesn't mean she doesn't love it, though, doesn't need it, doesn't need this strange combination of soft and hard Ava.

Because she needs it like air.

It's just a lot. A lot to process. Too much to process, so she doesn't, just concentrates on what is right in front of her—Ava, here, now, under her hands—and doesn't think about what this all means.

They shouldn't keep kissing as they take the stairs, but they do, Ava’s fingers urgent as she pulls Sara up, up towards their bedroom.

When they reach the top, they pause for a second. Ava is pressed up against the bedroom door. Sara is still leaning into her, still needs the support, but, for the first time, Ava relinquishes a bit of control, closing her eyes, her body relaxing slightly.

Sara's fingers find Ava’s lips, a thumb stroking over them, almost in wonder, and Ava smiles. Ava smiles and the world lights up. Sara kisses her while the smile is still on her face, her hand moving over Ava’s cheek. She feels Ava’s hand move downwards, fumbling for the handle, and the door swings open behind them.

Sara pulls away for a second, taking in the room she thought she'd never see again. The bed is unmade, but the sheets are only disturbed on Ava’s side.

So Ava hadn't been able to invade the space that was supposed to hold Sara, either. Had, instead, slept confined to one side in a lonely bed, feeling as wrong as Sara had. Ava glances over her shoulder, at what Sara is looking at.

She shrugs. “Right is your side. I wasn't just going to forget that. _Couldn't_ forget that.”

“Baby… I'm sorry.”

This is all her fault.

Ava shakes her head. “No. You're here now.”

“I'm here now,” Sara agrees. “I'm here as long as you want me.”

Ava’s eyes widen. “You think— you think I'm going to send you away?”

“No. Yes. I don't know, Ava. I don't think anything. I'm not expecting anything. I'm just lucky you still want me, even if it's just for this, now.”

“I don't want you just for this, Sara.”

“If you did, I would underst—"

“I'm your wife, Sara.” The way that Ava says it makes it clear that that is the end of that, that the conversation is over.

At least for now.

Inside the room, finally over the threshold, they swing around, so that it is Sara who is being walked slowly backwards towards the bed, who falls down lightly when her legs hit the side of it. She looks up at Ava. Ava smiles, then ducks down, starts working on the laces on Sara’s shoes. She tries to lean down, to help, but Ava presses her back up, gentle but firm.

“No. Let me do this.”

“Ava…”

“Shhh.”

Sara looks down at Ava, kneeling at her feet, and she has to take a breath to remind herself that this is real. It doesn't feel real. It feels wrong. And right. Wrong and right at the same time. When the shoes are off, Ava presses a kiss to the sensitive skin above Sara’s ankles. Sara shivers, wonders how she deserves this.

Ava trails her fingers upwards, finding Sara’s zipper, pulling her jeans downwards, lifting Sara’s hips up and carefully peeling the fabric off of Sara’s legs. As it moves downward, Ava’s mouth follows it, laying kisses on the skin of Sara’s legs.

Every touch aches with longing, with wariness. And Sara aches with the knowledge that it should not be Ava who is so desperately trying to put the pieces back together, who feels like she is the one who should be doing it.

It should be Sara.

As Ava’s hands skate over the skin on her thighs, her calves, Sara says as much.

Ava just shakes her head, says, “Later. We’ll talk about that later. We’ll talk about everything later,” and presses up, kissing her, her mouth soft, swallowing Sara’s protests.

Later will have to be enough.

Sara's shirt, though, is a problem. Long sleeved and black, when Ava tries to pull it over Sara’s head, Sara feels a spasm move through her, her arms refusing to lift up high enough, and she shakes her head.

“It's not coming off that way,” Sara says, gritting her teeth, trying to ignore the pain.

Ava looks down at where blood is now seeping out onto the front of the shirt, just below where her hands are splayed. “I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. Let me treat that before we do anything.” She stands up, moving away, and Sara already misses the contact.

“No, Ava, I'm fine.”

Ava turns around, leans down, sweeps hair out of Sara’s face. “No, you're not.” Ava kisses her lightly again. “I need to redo your dressing.”

Sara groans. “I don't want to stop.”

“Why? It's just temporary. You're in pain. I knew that. I thought I could distract you, I just didn't realise how badly you were still bleeding. I need to bandage it.”

“Because I don't want you to change your mind,” Sara says, honesty spilling out of her. “If you stop, you're going to change your mind.”

“I'm not going to change my mind,” Ava says, her voice firm. “I'm just going to bandage you again. Promise.”

Sara closes her eyes, letting out a breath, wonders if she can take the risk. Because it still feels like a risk. She is convinced that if she lets Ava out of her sight for even a second, that Ava will remember what a terrible idea this is. That Ava will remember she doesn’t have to be doing this, that she _shouldn't_ be doing this. But when she opens her eyes, Ava's focus on her is so intense, so reassuring, that she sighs and says, “Fine. But I ripped my stitches. I'll have to redo them as well.”

Ava shakes her head. “You don't have to. I can do that.”

Of course she can. She’s probably better at first aid than Sara is, has probably gone on an actual course and got a certificate. No-one had ever taught Sara. She'd just slowly figured out the best ways to make the pain stop, learnt over years and years of trial and error.

“Lie back,” Ava says, her hand briefly ghosting over Sara’s cheek, her eyes caring, and Sara does, moving backwards, falling onto the pillows, and staring up at the ceiling.

Ava disappears into their bathroom, and, a minute later, is back, sitting down next to Sara, the bed dipping slightly under her weight. Her fingers go to the fabric of Sara’s top, soft and familiar where they brush Sara’s skin, and then they pull away, gone as quickly as they had arrived.

“I'm going to have to cut your shirt,” Ava says, in explanation, her voice apologetic. “It's stuck to the dressing.”

“I don't care. Cut the whole thing off if you have to. It's hardly my shirt. It's from my safe house.”

At the mention of the safe house, Ava opens her mouth, then closes it again, considering. “I'll ask you about that later,” she says, eventually, quietly.

There is so much they have to talk about, but, for the minute, Ava seems content to set it aside, focused entirely on Sara. She slides the scissors through the fabric, cutting a line down the middle of the shirt. The slight sensation of the point dragging up Sara’s skin sends shivers down her spine.

It shouldn't be turning her on, but Ava is literally cutting her out of her shirt, and there's something to be said for the image in front of her, Ava’s brow furrowed in concentration, her tongue out slightly as she focuses.

One of Ava’s hands comes to rest lightly on Sara’s hip, just above the line of her underwear. It's obvious from the way Ava is still concentrating on the wound on Sara’s stomach that she's not even thinking about the touch, just doing it instinctively, to steady Sara, and not realizing that her fingertips are spreading fireworks underneath Sara’s skin. Sara feels like she's dreaming.

Ava’s hand, when she cuts the fabric that is still stuck to the bandages, is gentle. She pulls the bandage away from Sara’s skin, the blood-soaked fabric coming with it. After the bandage is out of the way, Ava is able to pull the rest of the shirt off, sliding it down Sara’s arms, slowly and carefully.

Ava winces when she sees the wound, big and angry and red. The fight didn’t just re-open it, but probably also aggravated it.

“I did this—"

“—no, Ava, you didn’t know it was me,” Sara says, hastily, interrupting.

Ava glances upwards, and Sara sees her eyes go to the bruise on Sara’s jaw, the cut on her arm, the other bruises everywhere, scrapes and cuts peppering Sara’s body.

Injuries she inflicted when she knew perfectly well that it was Sara.

“I—" Ava starts.

“Just sew me up so I can kiss you again,” Sara says, insistent. “I don't care about a couple of bruises. I've had so much worse.”

Ava, sighs, nodding.

“And it’s not like I didn't hurt you as well,” Sara says.

There are matching patches of dried blood on both of Ava’s arms. There are bruises to match Sara’s everywhere. There is a graze on Ava’s forehead that Sara doesn't remember causing, until she remembers the grenade. Hardly more than half an hour ago, Sara had thrown a grenade in Ava’s direction.

Sure, it was a small one, but she'd done it. And now, somehow, she is here, looking up at Ava, trying not to writhe in the anticipation of Ava’s fingers on her.

Ava follows Sara’s gaze, looking at the wounds on her skin like she had forgotten they even existed.

“Oh.”

Ava tips antiseptic onto a cloth, sweeping it over the wound. Sara gasps at the feeling, the brief sting.

“We’re even, Aves.”

“No, we’re not,” Ava says, as she finishes cleaning out the wound, her touch feather light as she pulls out the broken remnants of the stitches Sara had put in.

“You’re right,” Sara says, ignoring what she knows Ava is about to say. Sure, the ways Ava has hurt Sara are superficially worse, but Sara knows that the pain she's caused Ava can't even be compared to a couple of flesh wounds. “I don't deserve you—"

“Stop saying that. Stop putting words in my mouth. That's not what I meant. You _know_ that's not what I meant.”

“I'm not trying to get out of this, Aves. I'm not trying to run away. Not now. Not anymore. But, the truth is, I _don't_ deserve you. Not after what I’ve done. To the people I've killed. To you. But I'm going to try every day of my life until I'm good enough for you.”

“You're good enough for me right now.” Ava's voice is hard, uncompromising.

“Agree to disagree.”

Ava smiles a weak smile. “I'm going to put in the stitches now, okay?”

Maybe it's just a ploy to get Sara to shut up, but it works, and she does, gritting her teeth as Ava sews her back up. Her stitches are much cleaner, more precise than Sara had been, and she's quicker as well. Sara isn't surprised; Ava is good at everything.

When she's done, when she has deftly applied a new bandage, sealing it in with careful hands, Sara doesn't waste any time, pulling her close, one hand on Ava’s neck, the other on her leg. She pulls Ava from where she has been kneeling by Sara, moving her so that she is instead kneeling with one leg either of side of Sara’s hips, straddling her. The weight of Ava’s body is warm, familiar.

Their lips are inches away when Ava pulls back. “We’re both covered in blood,” she says, running her finger over one of the patches of red on Sara’s arm in demonstration.

Sara shivers at the feeling, then groans.

“You were the one who started this,” she says, pouting. The anticipation is making her forget her place, making her act like she usually would have, before everything went down. “You said you were going to fuck me and you keep stopping and it's _killing_ me. We can keep going. A little blood never hurt anyone.”

Ava rocks backwards, further away, and it's exactly the opposite of what Sara wants. She reaches out, placing her hands on Ava’s hips, trying to pull her back in.

“I can't shower, anyway, not with the dressing,” Sara adds. “And you are _not_ leaving me to shower. I know how long you take.”

And then, for the first time since the rooftop, Ava laughs, like the reminder that they still know each other, that not _everything_ has changed, is good enough to make joy literally burst out of her.

The sound is the best thing Sara has ever heard, will ever hear.

“I love you. But don't make me wait, baby, please,” Sara says. “Not now. Not today. I need this.”

“Okay. No shower. Only because you said please,” Ava says, and then she stretches up, pulling her tank over her head. Sara's breath catches in her throat at the expanse of skin suddenly on show.

Then she registers the bra Ava is wearing. It's a sports bra, one Sara had bought her to try to convince Ava that sports bras could be sexy. Ava always looks good in anything, but in this, now, in Sara’s gift, she looks perfect.

“Just give me one second,” Ava says, holding up one finger to illustrate her point. “I'm washing my hands at least.”

“That's not sexy.”

“Hygiene,” Ava says, pressing down, almost close enough to touch. Sara leans up, reaching for Ava’s lips, and Ava pulls away, teasing, “is incredibly sexy.”

She swings her legs around, disappears into the bathroom once more.

Sara tries not to whine at the loss of contact, of weight and heat on her body.

There is the sound of water running. Before Sara can think about how ramped up she is, before she can think about maybe, maybe beginning to sort _herself_ out, Ava reappears in the doorway. She has pulled her hair out of the ponytail it was in, and, as she crosses from the doorway to the bed, she gets rid of her leggings, peeling them off, one leg at a time, and never once breaking eye contact with Sara.

Sara shuffles backwards slightly, propping herself up. Ava joins her again, back in the same position, her legs straddling Sara’s hips again, and then, finally, finally, kisses Sara again.

And, somehow, it's the best kiss of all of them. Her mouth is hard, and her hands are soft, running up and down Sara’s skin, like she can't get enough, like she needs to feel everything, before finally settling on Sara’s neck.

Ava’s tongue runs along Sara’s lips, teasing them open.

Sara sighs.

Ava's hands move lower, over the fabric of Sara’s bra. It's plain black, a stark contrast to the bright white of Ava’s, and there's maybe some sort of symbolism there, but Sara’s not thinking about that.

Not as Ava’s fingers brush over the skin spilling out of the cups.

Ava pointedly runs her hands over the straps, and Sara gets the message, lifting up her torso slightly so that Ava can get under her back, her fingers tentative as she undoes the catch. She pulls the straps down Sara’s arms even more gingerly. Finally, the bra is gone, tossed somewhere. Ava is doing everything so slowly, so carefully, that it's driving Sara wild. When Ava’s mouth leaves Sara’s, she is momentarily annoyed, and then it follows her hands, finding her breasts, and the complaint dies in her throat.

She almost thinks she could get off just on that, on Ava’s mouth on her nipples, and then it's gone.

Ava keeps moving downward, never letting their bodies be entirely flush, careful never to do anything more than brush the bandage with her body.

Sara wants to tell her to fuck it, to press down and not care about the pain she might cause, because all she wants is for them to be together, skin on skin and nothing in between, but Ava is doing it with such tenderness that the lack of contact is almost not a problem.

Ava's mouth moves lower, kissing around the bandage, all around it, feather light touches on every edge. Ava is so soft that Sara feels like she is wrapped in cotton wool, and she's so distracted by what Ava’s mouth is doing that she almost doesn't notice Ava’s hands where they have moved to dance around the edges of Sara’s underwear.

Almost.

Ava’s fingers are suddenly too close to where Sara needs them for any semblance of rational thought.

All she can say is, “Ava, please.”

Ava takes pity on her, finally, lifting up Sara’s hips, tugging the thin fabric down her legs, throwing the underwear somewhere behind them, to join the bra.

Sara knows she is more than ready. She knows Ava can see that.

Ava waits.

“Ava…” It’s hardly even her name, hardly more than a whine. “I need you. This. You. I need you so much.”

She has never needed anything more. Ava looks at her. Takes a breath. Never once breaks eye contact.

“You never lied about how you felt about me?”

Sara shakes her head. “No. No. Never. I promise.” Ava's hands find her hips, and Sara squirms, pressing upwards, desperate. “I never lied about that. I love you. I love you so much, Ava. I love you so much it _hurts_.”

Ava just nods, a tiny movement, and then her fingers are finally on Sara, moving slowly. Sara's mouth falls open. Ava's making tiny circles, and even though they're only giving the barest hint of relief, it feels like so much more, and she bucks up at the sudden sensation, after so long waiting for it. 

The hand that isn't moving on Sara drifts back up to rest where it was before, just above her hip, Ava applying the slightest pressure as she leans lightly on that arm, keeping Sara down.

Her gaze keeps flicking between Sara’s eyes and her own hand, where it's still slowly working. Sara closes her eyes, lets everything wash over her. It's hardly anything, but it's somehow _everything,_ as well.

“Good?” Ava asks, still tentative.

“God, Aves, obviously.” Ava presses down, and Sara stifles a groan, her face contorting. “Feels so good. You're so— you're so—”

She can't finish the sentence, because it's too much. Fragments are all she can manage anymore. Ava slowly speeds up the movements of her hand, building Sara up and up until it's too much, and she's coming. “Fuck. I love you,” she breathes out, her head spinning, slowly opening her eyes.

It was quick, but, frankly, Sara’s surprised she wasn't quicker.

She was sure she was going to fall apart the second Ava laid a hand on her.

Ava just smiles. She doesn't stop, but instead just slows back down, her hand still moving, making lazy movements that might have been enough the first time, but aren't going to cut it if Sara wants more.

And she does. She wants so much more.

Sara can hardly think, but, in the haze, with half-open eyes trained on Ava, she manages to say, “I thought you said you were going to fuck me. This is just”—her words catch in her throat as Ava presses down again with her fingertip—“foreplay,” she manages to finish.

Ava leans down, kisses her, and at the same time, her fingers move downwards, slipping inside easily, and Sara moans, the sound swallowed by Ava’s mouth.

She smiles against Sara’s lips, like that sound is what she was wanting. Ava’s hand is assured, pressing in and curling. She's always been good at this, has always known exactly how to pull Sara apart perfectly, but, somehow, today, she’s better.

Sara can feel everything. Every part of her is sensitive. Ava's fingers twist inside of her, searching, and then they finally hit the spot, and Sara’s vision blurs. Sounds tumble out of her mouth, sounds that are hardly even words, a jumble of pleas and affirmations and Ava’s name, over and over again. Ava just makes soothing sounds in response, the hand that isn't working into Sara coming up to stroke Sara’s face.

It's all too soft, and Sara almost can't take it. She is glad for the fingers inside of her that she can focus on, focus on losing herself in the sensation like she always does, instead of thinking about everything else.

When Sara is close again, clenching and tightening, Ava obviously notices, because she leans down, dangerously close, a smile on her face like she knows exactly what she's doing, and she speeds up her movements, her thrusts getting even more precise.

Her teeth find Sara’s neck, and bite down, just the tiniest bit.

Ava adds another finger, stretching her slightly, and then her thumb just lightly grazes over where Sara needs it, and Sara comes again, sighing into Ava’s neck.

Ava pulls back a few inches to look at Sara. She looks beautiful, her hair hanging down. Her expression is gentle.

“You want to keep going?” Ava asks, her voice quiet. The, _“Because I do,”_ is left unsaid, but Sara knows Ava well enough to be able to read her. Ava isn't finished with Sara, and Sara is perfectly happy with that, because she isn't done yet.

“We've got all day,” Sara breathes, and they do, because it's hardly even morning yet.

Ava's tongue runs over her lip, her tell, always her tell, and then the lust disappears from her face again. “You sure?” she asks, worried. “I can slow down, if you need.” It's adorable, the idea that Ava wants this more than Sara does, but also frustrating, because Sara is nowhere even _close_ to being done.

“I need your mouth on me, baby.”

Ever since Sara had thought of that, back in their wrecked hallway, she'd known she wouldn't be sated until Ava had had her tongue on her at least once.

Maybe twice.

Ava smirks, goes willingly, her hands soft on Sara’s thighs, pressing then out. At the first touch of Ava’s mouth, and then her tongue when Ava’s lips fall open, Sara really thinks she might fall, but she holds it.

It's more than worth it, though, because one lick of Ava’s tongue, and Sara is convinced she's never felt anything anything better than this.

Not their first kiss or their first time.

Not even their kiss in the hallway, a kiss that was a symbol of so much more, a kiss that was hope and love and forgiveness all in one.

This is better.

This is so much better, and Sara can’t think of anything, can’t think of what she’s done or who she is or all the lies she’s told, because her mind is blank. Bright white. Nothing exists except for Ava—her wife—in between her legs.

Ava flicks her tongue, and Sara’s thighs clamp involuntarily. Ava pushes them back out, gentle but firm, and keeps going, her tongue as perfect as it always is, six years of knowing exactly what Sara likes under her belt.

It's perfect. _Ava_ is perfect, and Sara doesn't think she's ever felt this good.

She says as much, or at least, she tries to, in between gasps. At the sound of her broken words, her attempt at telling Ava how much of _everything_ she is feeling, Sara thinks she feels Ava smiling against her, and that's almost enough to tip her over the edge.

Not quite enough, though, but she can feel it building, knows Ava can feel it building.

Ava pulls her mouth away, just for a second. Sara almost whines, and then Ava looks at her and says, “I love you,” before ducking back down, and the sound dies in Sara’s throat.

As Ava runs her tongue over Sara’s clit, Sara realises that that is the first time Ava has said it back since everything fell apart. It has been a constant on Sara's lips since she had first admitted it, confessed that she still had feelings, but this is the first time Ava has reciprocated.

The realisation is enough to tip Sara over the edge a million times over. Ava _loves her_ and it’s like she can feel the words running through her as she bucks up so hard Ava can’t keep her down, her body shaking. There are white spots in her vision, and her whole body feels light. She hardly feels the injuries anymore. Her hands are fisted in the sheets.

It rocks through her what feels like minutes. She is floating, and Ava’s mouth is still on her, slowly bringing her down, tiny movements of her tongue guiding Sara through the afterglow.

Sara knows she can't top that, won’t be able to recreate that perfect high exactly, but she doesn’t care, because she’s still so hungry, hungry for Ava, and Ava seems to understand, without Sara needing to ask, because she keeps going.

Her hands find Sara’s, easing them out of the fists they are still pressed into, her fingers soothing, working out the tension from Sara’s fingers. Ava’s mouth is slower, more delicate, dragging it out, and, after what seems like an age, after what seems like hours of Ava building her up, Sara whimpering, shaking—Sara finally finishes, one last time.

It's quieter, not nearly as earth-shattering, but the normality is what she needs.

When her breathing finally returns to normal and she opens her eyes, Ava is propped up on her elbow, tracing absent minded lines on Sara’s skin with her fingertip, watching Sara.

“You're beautiful when you're like this,” Ava muses. “And— and all the other times. But… especially like this.”

Sara smiles a half smile, leans up, pulls her close. Ava’s mouth still tastes of Sara, and it's intoxicating. It would make her want more if she wasn't so completely spent.

“That wasn't just because of the sex, right?” Sara asks, when they break apart. She would’ve asked earlier, but she is only now regaining her ability to speak in full sentences.

“When I said that you were beautiful?”

“No… before that.”

There's a twinkle in Ava’s eyes. She knew what Sara meant. She always has. _Maybe_ , Sara dares to let herself think, _maybe always_ will. “When I told you that I loved you?”

Sara nods.

“I meant it. It wasn’t just because of the sex. I love you,” Ava says, simply. “I love you. Despite everything.” She pauses. “Anyway, it wasn't like I said it while _I_ was being screwed.”

And, oh. Right. Ava hasn't had _anything_ yet. Sara needs to change that. Needs to make Ava feel how she had. She sits up, says, “Let me take care of you.”

Ava pauses, and for a second they are both still. Then she shakes her head, quickly. “It's fine. You're still hurt.”

“My hands still work,” Sara says, wiggling them in demonstration. “And my mouth. You don’t need to worry about me.”

Ava bites her lip. “I’m…” she trails off.

“Baby,” Sara says. “Let me touch you. Let me say thank you.”

“You don’t need to say—”

“Shh, Ava, I _want_ to.”

“I don’t _need—_ ”

Sara cuts her off with a kiss. Her hands trace a line down Ava’s stomach, to her underwear. Her want is obvious, without Sara even needing to touch to find out.

When Sara’s hand traces the line of her underwear, getting closer, Ava gasps.

And then recoils slightly, her face twisting, screwing her eyes shut.

Sara pulls away sharply, withdrawing her hand. Ava has never pulled away like this before. Something is wrong, and the haze is immediately gone. Sara’s mind is completely her own as she sits herself up, her fingers going to Ava’s face.

She is shocked to find the beginning of tears there.

Maybe this wasn’t just about worry for Sara.

“Ava…”

“I—" Ava stops, the words choking in her throat. She tries again, and no words come out.

There is confusion on her face, confusion as her eyes roam over Sara.

“Ava?”

Ava is still silent, and then she shakes her head.

“Ava. God. Please. Talk to me.”

“I'm sorry. I can't keep going. I can’t do this. I still— I still love you, this doesn't change anything I said before. I _want_ this. But I just… _can't_. Do you see?” Ava's voice is desperate, pleading.

Sara pulls her hands away, and sees Ava glance at them. There is a dusting of dried blood on the knuckles, on the fingertips, and it's not much, but, suddenly, Sara sees what Ava does.

Sees them _covered_ in blood, blood that isn’t there but feels like it should be.

Sees them as the hands of a murderer.

It's understandable that she doesn't want them inside her. Doesn’t want Sara’s mouth on her, this mouth that has done nothing but lie to her for years.

Sara pulls back, increasing the space between them.

“I see, baby, I see. Don't worry. God. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I understand.”

Ava looks up, her eyes wide, like she wasn't expecting that, wasn't expecting Sara to understand. It would hurt if Sara hadn't literally _just_ turned everything upside down so absolutely. Now that Ava knows who Sara is, Sara can't expect her to trust her completely, like she did before, anytime soon. Maybe ever. Ava wipes the tears away, and then her hands are closing over Sara’s, putting them back where they were, either side of her face, pulling Sara back closer, pulling her close enough to kiss her briefly.

“No. Like this is fine. I'm not saying I don't want you to touch me at all. Just… not like that. I can't let you have sex with me.”

“Not ever?” Sara whispers. Forever is a long time, and of course, she would never do anything Ava didn't want, but the thought of never being able to take care of her like that again is a lot, especially when she's just got her back.

But all she wants is to make Ava feel safe and comfortable, and if that means keeping her hands to herself, she'd do it for a million years.

She just needs to know, whatever the answer is.

“No. Not never. At least, I don't think so. Just… not yet. I need some time, Sara.”

“Okay,” Sara breathes, bringing their faces close, foreheads touching. “Okay.”

Ava pulls them down, so they are no longer sitting but lying again. Ava curls her body into Sara’s, pressing in, but still being careful not to touch the bandage.

Ever cautious. Ever observant.

Her head is under Sara’s chin. Sara’s fingers go to Ava’s hair, gently running through it.

“Just tell me if anything isn't okay, yeah?”

Ava sighs against Sara’s chest. “I'm sorry. I didn't even realise this was going to be a problem until two minutes ago. I wouldn't have started— I would've told you if I had—"

“Don't apologise. Don't apologize for _that._ Ever.” Sara's voice, when she interrupts, is harder than she had intended, but she needs Ava to know she means it. “I love you. All of you. Whichever parts of you that you want to share. If all you want to do is kiss for the rest of our lives, I'm fine with that. And—"

And then Sara stops, freezing, the words getting stuck in her throat. “Were you okay with everything we just did? Everything you did to me?” She's panicking, her throat feeling like it's closing in on her. “Ava?”

“Yes,” Ava assures her, hasty. “Yes. I promise. I wanted that. I think I actually… needed that. It's just… me. I can't let you do that to _me._ ”

Sara needs to see her eyes. Her heart is still pounding. She finds Ava’s chin, tilting it back. “Baby, are you sure?”

Ava nods. “I wanted that more than anything. I think… I think I needed to see that you were still you. That you hadn't changed. That you'd react the same way. And I needed to be in control. But I can't let go of it. Not yet. I thought I could, but I can't just jump straight back to where we were. I need some time before we do.”

“Okay.”

Ava's head goes back to Sara’s chest.

“Can we just sleep?” Ava asks. “I hardly slept last night, without you. That's why I was up when you came. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.”

Sleep sounds good. All of a sudden, Sara is aware of how tired she really is.

“Yeah, Ava, we can just sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: consent withdrawal, consent discussions. basically consent issues dealt with in a loving way. there is no sex after the withdrawal
> 
> okay. i know this is probably not how you guys wanted this chapter to end, but i would like to say three things:  
> 1) this fic still has a happy ending. i've written it. it's 100% a no caveats happy ending  
> 2) it was going to be unrealistic, not to mention really icky for me to write, if everything was immediately fixed. there has to be some repercussions  
> 3) they're still in love, and they're still going into these last four chapters as a team
> 
> part of me thinks i don't need to explain myself. part of me knows that some of y'all are going to be disappointed, and i don't want that, so that's why you're getting an explanation. this is honestly one of my fave chapters in the fic, but at the same time has been giving me ridiculous anxiety for literally two months bc i've been worried about how the ending would be received. so i needed to say SOMETHING about it, because i don't want disappointed comments on this chapter, of all chapters.


	8. memories turn into daydreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the second (and final) Ava interlude! Bit longer than the last one, but still short enough to warrant the earlier update.
> 
> Title from house of memories by panic

Ava wakes up to the sun filtering through the blinds. She blinks. That's wrong. It shouldn't be light outside. She looks at the clock in front of her, and it’s telling her that it’s 9AM. For a second, she can't remember why she's in bed so late in the day—she should’ve been up and awake by 6AM, at the latest—and then she remembers the events of the morning.

She rolls over, and there, inches away, is Sara.

Her wife.

The woman she had been so sure she'd lost.

She reaches out a hand, almost to check that this is real, that Sara is really there. Sara stirs, her eyes fluttering open, and then closing again. She presses in closer, shifting into Ava’s space.

“You're staring at me,” Sara mumbles, half asleep.

“I didn't think I was ever going to see you again,” Ava says, trying, and failing, to stop herself from choking up. “And I thought even if I did, that you’d say it had never been real.”

Sara’s eyes open again, and she wipes at them with the back of her hand. When the sleep has faded from her eyes, she speaks. “I’m sorry, baby. I never wanted to hurt you like this, you have to believe me.”

And Ava does, but it's still not quite enough.

Under the covers, Sara's hand finds Ava’s, gripping tight, like if she lets go for even a second, Ava will disappear.

Sara has already voiced that worry, that Ava is going to go, or tell her to leave, and all Ava wants to do is tell her that she doesn’t need to worry, that Ava would never let go of her ever again if she had a choice, but she knows it would fall on deaf ears, especially after how the morning had ended.

She can hardly expect Sara to believe her when she says she’s not going to push her away when she’d done just that hours ago.

“I wasn't supposed to fall in love. I didn't _want_ to fall in love. I was dangerous. Too far gone. Too messed up to inflict on anyone else. And then you turned up, and you didn't give me a choice, Ava.” Sara’s voice is earnest, and she never breaks eye contact. “I know I shouldn't have—"

“No—"

“No, I really shouldn't have. I was selfish. I wanted you and I knew you wanted me and I made myself believe that it didn't matter that I was lying to you about everything if I wasn't lying about how I felt.”

“That's all that matters.”

“No, it's not,” Sara says.

“I lied to you as well.”

“About being a fucking spy, Ava, not an assassin!”

Ava can't help but recoil at the sudden anger in Sara’s voice. “I don't care about that. I've told you. You didn't have a choice. The whole reason we all wanted to take you in is because we were sure there was something good in you.” Her hand reaches out to Sara’s face. “And we were right, obviously.”

Sara pulls away, rolling onto her back. “You should care about it,” she says, staring up at the ceiling.

And that's the thing, because of course Ava cares. She knows it's wrong, knows what Sara has done is wrong, but she just loves Sara more, even while knowing that still loving her is also still a little bit wrong.

More than a little bit, maybe.

(It's entirely wrong. She should hate Sara, and she doesn't. She doesn't. She's never going to.)

Ava takes a breath. “Fine,” she says, propping herself up on her elbow, looking at Sara.

Sara eyes her, wary. “Fine what?”

“Tell me about it.”

“It?”

Ava can't tell if Sara is being purposely obtuse, or if she just can't process Ava asking about her other life. “Your life. With them. With the League.”

Sara sighs. “Okay. What about it?”

Ava purses her lips, thinking for a second, then figures she might as well start with the worst and asks, “How many people have you killed?”

She hears Sara’s breath catch in her throat at the abruptness of the question, Ava diving straight into the deep end. “Ava…”

“Are you going to tell me or not?” Ava can't stop the confrontational tone that creeps into her voice.

Sara considers. “Somewhere between 200 and 250. Maybe closer to 200.”

Ava has to try not to physically react. It's a lot, but she's not even sure what she was expecting. Doesn't know if it's more or less than she had thought.

“You don't know exactly?”

Sara closes her eyes, pain evident on her face, and Ava feels bad, but now she’s asked, she needs to know. Needs to at _least_ know this.

“I never kept track. I've been killing since I turned eighteen, Ava. Twelve years is a long time.” She pauses, sighing. “But I slowed down after I met you. Made less hits. Worked my other job more. And this last year… I could hardly do it anymore. Could hardly pull the trigger anymore.”

“How many this year?” Ava asks.

“Three.”

“All year?”

Sara nods, and that's enough, at least for today. Ava doesn't want to know more. She collapses back on the pillow, joining Sara in staring at the ceiling.

“I've killed five people,” Ava says, her voice low. “Not… on purpose. They were accidents. Collateral damage.”

“With the Bureau?” Sara asks.

Ava shakes her head. “The army.”

“God, I never knew…”

“I never told you, Sara. I lied as well. About almost everything. Almost more than you. I never went to Stanford. I've never worked a day as an accountant in my life—"

“—but you were so good at doing our taxes—"

“Yeah, I got my assistant to do those.” Ava pauses. “I lied so much. Like, God, Sara, I was lying right from the first night I met you. I'd just finished a mission. That was why I was dressed up. Not because I’d chosen to look like that.”

Sara raises her eyebrows. “That's all? That's not much of a lie.”

“No. No.” Ava wishes that was all it was. “Later, when you kissed me. I thought— I thought I saw someone I recognised across the room. One of the guys we'd been hunting down and lost. If I chased him, or if he saw me, then I would've blown my cover to the entire bar. I had to get out of the room. Somewhere he wouldn't follow.”

“So that was why you were—"

“Suddenly so eager to get somewhere else? Yeah…” Ava knows her face is guilty.

Sara's expression twists. “Wait. So, you didn't _want_ that? Me? You didn't want to have sex?”

Ava can see the wheels turning in Sara’s mind, coming to the wrong conclusion—that Ava had only followed her into that bathroom out of necessity.

She’s making a mess of this, fucking with Sara’s head, over and over again, making her think that Ava had lied about _that_ , that she hadn’t wanted Sara to fuck her, and it’s not an unfair assumption, from what Ava had just said, but it's an assumption that makes Ava feel like she’s just had cold water dumped over her. She doesn't ever want to make Sara worry like that.

Because she’s always wanted that. She’d never lied about that. She’s always wanted Sara, right up until that morning. When she speaks, her voice is frantic, trying to say what she means without messing it up further. “No. No. God, Sara. Sorry. No. That's not what I meant.”

Sara's face relaxes. “No?” she asks, pressing closer, her voice weak.

“I could've just excused myself. I didn't have to bring you with me.”

“But you did.”

“But I did,” Ava agrees. “Because—"

“You were just that _desperate_ for me to screw you _,_ and this just gave you an excuse? _”_ Sara suggests.

Ava rolls her eyes, but she can't disagree. "I wanted you. That wasn't a lie."

And then Sara screws up her mouth, takes a breath. “When I left, that first night…”

“You left to kill someone,” Ava finishes, easily, because it’s suddenly obvious. She hadn’t thought of it until just now, but it’s so obvious.

“Yeah.” The word comes out as a sigh. “If— if you’d been the reason I missed a job, they wouldn’t have— they wouldn’t have let you get away with that. I couldn’t stay, no matter how much I wanted to.”

“No, I… I understand,” and Ava does, she really does. She’s not sure if it makes the memory of being left there better or worse. Maybe it’s neither. Maybe it’s just different. “It’s okay.”

Sara laughs, a nervous laugh, settling back down. Their hands are still intertwined, and she brings them up to face level. Her lips lightly brush against Ava’s fingers, and a shiver runs through Ava’s whole body. “Now that I’ve got that out of the way, have you got any other bombshells?”

“Was that a bombshell?”

“No, not really,” Sara says with something that is almost a wink. “But if you're working up to, like, ‘I'm not actually a lesbian,’ you should probably drop that on me now.”

“I'm a lesbian,” Ava assures her. “But I've got a few more bombshells.”

“Hit me.”

“I'm not from Fresno. I'm from Vancouver.”

“I married a Canadian?” Sara's expression is adorably shocked. It's not surprising. She's always been annoyingly cute about how much she loves America.

“Kinda. Moved to the Midwest, got my citizenship.” She pauses. “I used to be a registered Republican.”

“Oh my god. Why?” Sara’s nose crinkles up.

“My parents.”

“Can I kick their asses?”

“Not really…” Ava stops, takes a breath, takes five breaths. “They, uh, they died. A long time ago, actually.”

“Ava, I'm sorry, I—"

“No, it's fine. It really was a long time ago. Long before I even met you.”

“So those people I met at our wedding?”

“Actors.”

Sara laughs again.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because my parents were actors, too. We had two sets of actors meet, God, we’re such a mess.”

Ava hadn't even thought about that, about how she knew that the Canary’s family was dead, about what that meant for the people she had met, feeling so guilty that her parents were nothing but a lie. The guilt is gone now, though, and it feels amazing. Finding out your wife lied to you for years shouldn't have this effect, but they were both lying, and now that it is out in the open, it's a weight off her chest.

“We’re not a mess. We’ve just got a lot to learn.” Ava pulls Sara close. “I want to know everything about you. Everything that you never told me.”

Sara grimaces. “You won't like most of it.”

“I don't care. I made a vow. For better or for worse.”

“Did you think it would ever get as bad as this?”

“No,” Ava admits. “But I don't mind. I want to fall in love with you all over again.”

“Only if you tell me everything as well, _Agent_.”

The way that Sara says her title makes Ava rue the fact that she’s missed out on six years of hearing Sara roll it off her tongue like it's the best word she's ever said. She wants Sara to say it over and over again, just like that. Partly for the way she’s saying it. Partly as a reminder that Sara _knows_ now, that she doesn’t have the burden of lying anymore.

“What do you want to know?” Ava asks.

Ava is more than willing to spend the next year of her life telling Sara everything she has had to keep secret, but there is so much that she doesn't know where to start.

Sara considers. “How long have you been trying to find me?”

“Seven years.”

Sara lets out a breath. “Long time.”

“I'm persistent. You were going to be my in with the League, babe. I had all this information and I knew, I _knew_ it was true, but I was never able to prove enough.” She pauses. “It doesn't matter now, though. It was all for nothing.”

Sara turns, suddenly, her eyes lighting up. “No. It wasn't.”

“What?”

“I can help you. Help the Bureau. I still know everything.”

“No,” Ava says. “They still wants you arrested. We have to stay away.”

“Ava, baby. You can't hide me forever.”

“We can run away.” It’s a childish impulse, but Ava wants that. She wants to get somewhere where Sara can be safe, even if it means leaving everything behind.

“No, we can't. Then you'll just be a fugitive along with me. I don't want that. I'll help the Bureau. You're just going to have to convince them not to lock me up and throw away the key,” Sara says, smiling a weak smile.

“I can't risk that, I can't risk losing you again.”

“You're going to have to,” Sara says.

Her hand reaches out to stroke Ava’s face, and Ava instinctively leans into the touch.

“We can't live in a bubble, Ava. We can't just ignore all of this. Our house is trashed, and anyone other than Bureau is going to ask questions about that if we try to fix it, so we need them. But you're not at work right now, even though I'm pretty sure you should be, and they're going to figure out something is wrong pretty soon, anyway. We can’t ignore it, so we might as well lean into it.”

Sara is right. Ava should be at work. When the trail had gone cold, she’d given the job over to their surveillance team for the night, with the promise that she would be in work bright and early the next day, no matter what. And she hadn’t lied when she had promised that. She  _had_ been planning to go back, to act as if everything was fine, and to do the utmost she could, without anyone noticing, to make sure she wouldn't have to turn Sara in. She had assumed Sara would run

So she hadn't expected Sara turning up at her door and pushing all thoughts of going into work out of her mind _,_ hadn’t expected _this._ Whatever _this_ is. All she knows right now is that Sara is back in her bed, and that she had fallen apart under her fingers and her mouth earlier this morning just like she always had.

She doesn't know anything else about where they are except that Sara is _here._

Sara, who was so understanding when Ava had to pull away, when she couldn't go through with what _she_ had started, with what she'd started because of this _need_ she'd had to show herself that Sara was still the same person, would still break under her ministrations like she always had. This need to have her completely at Ava’s mercy. To be in control.

A need that hadn't extended to being able to let Sara to reciprocate, because, apparently, even if Sara is still the same person, Ava has changed. Not irrevocably, and not completely, but enough to mean that something has shifted between them.

At the thought, Ava closes her eyes, turns slightly away from Sara. As Ava shifts, Sara’s hand falls away. Ava is a tiny bit glad, because being this close to Sara is hard. All her body wants her to do is pull her close and get her to do something about the aching between her legs, this want that she can’t shake.

And her heart and her mind scream every time she thinks it, scream that if she lets Sara close like that she’s only going to hurt her again. Because she _is_ hurting. She’s still desperately in love, but she’s hurting, and the only thing that’s going to change that is time.

So she can only wait.

She checks her phone, an excuse for pulling away, and there are twenty missed calls from her assistant, Gary. She turns back, and Sara is looking at her with careful eyes.

“I do need to go into the Bureau,” Ava says, sighing.

“Soon?” Sara asks.

Ava nods.

Sara pauses, and Ava can almost see the wheels turning in her mind. “Okay. I want to take down the League. You want to take down the League,” Sara continues. “So you are going to take me with you to the Bureau, and we're going to take down the fucking League.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that it was a little (a lot) dialogue heavy and expositiony. just needed a bit of good old fashioned truthtelling, because the next chapters don't really have time for that... hope you enjoyed the second look into ava's head!
> 
> At this point, we are now roughly halfway through what I have affectionately dubbed 'Ava and Sara's day from hell' because, if you're keeping score at home, we've been in the same evening/early morning since literally chapter 3, and we're not leaving this day until.... chapter 10.
> 
> directoravasharpe.tumblr.com | @_avasharpe


	9. can't fight the friction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good news, guys - i passed the exams that i went on hiatus to study for, which is kinda a miracle bc i spent... a Lot of that hiatus writing this, but hey, somehow i managed it lmao.
> 
> glad y'all enjoyed the little light relief of the ava interlude. honestly ou guys needed the rest bc from here until the end of chapter 10 it's just... all out

Ava is in the shower. Sara is still in their bed, trying to process everything that has happened. A week ago, she would've offered to join, but now she has this bandage on her side, and she’s giving Ava space. Ava will come to her, if and when she's ready for them to be together again like that.

And Sara’s not going to rush her.

So, she is in their room, taking it in. Part of her wants to go downstairs, survey the damage. Part of her wants to ignore that, at least for now. She takes the easier option, stays in the bedroom. There will be time for the hard part later. She finds a sleep shirt flung over a chair, one that she had left there hardly two days (but that feels like a million years ago) ago, and she shrugs it back on.

They're going to the Bureau. There is no immediate danger. They can rest, breathe slightly.

Right?

And then she stops, in the middle of the room, halfway back to the bed. The shower has stopped running, and Sara’s mind is suddenly spinning. She stops, because, as Ava had assumed, the League had to have tipped the Bureau off. Nobody else knew about the assignment.

At the time, Sara hadn't had time to think about what that meant. Now, though, she realises that they can't have known everything. Ava’s cover must have been good enough, good enough that they didn't realise who she was. Good enough that they didn't realise that she wouldn't kill Sara, that that had never been her aim, because the League would never have risked Sara falling into the government’s hands. They wanted her dead, not feeding information to the enemy.

The League had trained their agents not to speak, but when they had called in the tip, they had to have known that Sara wasn’t loyal anymore, wouldn’t have any qualms selling out her old employers.

So they hadn't wanted her taken alive. They had assumed that the Bureau would take her out, had planned for the Bureau to take her out.

But their plan had failed. The Bureau hadn't taken her out, hadn't even taken her in. She wasn’t dead, and it must've taken a little while for them to confirm that, that she was neither dead nor captured, because they obviously didn't have a direct line to the Bureau, if they'd had to filter their message through multiple sources.

Sara knows that if they could've taken her out at the safe house, they would’ve, so they couldn't have known that she was alive until after she left. Presumably, if they'd thought she was dead, they wouldn't have been monitoring the feeds in the house.

Their hubris was their fatal flaw. They were always too confident in their plans.

And that was the only thing that had saved her, them not checking the feeds. She would already be dead if they'd known she was there.

She never would've gone back if she'd thought they might have been looking for her there, but the confrontation with Ava had muddled her mind so much that she hadn't been thinking about anything, not least if there was anyone else behind the incident other than the Bureau.

And then, once she left the house, it would've been hard to track her. There weren’t many cameras in the neighborhood, and they didn’t know about the car.

They probably hadn't thought she would come home, either. They might have assumed that she would run. That's what she would've done. It probably would've taken them a while to find her. Maybe that is why nothing has happened yet, because they haven't found her.

Because Sara is now certain _something_ is going to happen.

In the bathroom, Ava is humming.

The League has to figure it out eventually, even if they haven't already.

Part of her thinks they would already be dead if the League had found them. Part of her thinks that they might've found them already, but are waiting, not wanting to risk a full out break-in in a quiet, suburban area. It's completely contrary to their mission statement: to be quiet, unseen.

Sara's mind races. There's a chance, a small chance, that the League hasn't found them yet, that they can get out of there unscathed, and she's rushing around the room, trying to pack things up before Ava comes out of the shower and she has to explain.

She doesn't dare open the blinds, doesn't dare check. She races into the other room, gathering things up as quickly as she can.

But when she gets back into the bedroom, Ava is at the window. She’s got a towel wrapped around her body, another one rubbing at her hair. When Sara enters, Ava smiles at her.

The room is bright.

Ava has opened the blinds.

The hair on the back of Sara’s neck stands up before she sees the red dot on the wall, the unmistakable glint of a sight on a roof across the street.

Time slows down.

This is what she had always imagined. This is how she had always known it would end—with Ava dead because of her. A bullet in her because Sara had been selfish enough to let Ava love her.

But, no. It’s not ending this way. She refuses to let that happen. Not after the hell Sara has been through in the past day. This rollercoaster of a day is not ending like _this._ She’s not letting Ava get hurt again, not if she can help it.

So Sara doesn't duck, doesn't get out of sight of the window, because she can’t, not while Ava is still standing there, exposed and utterly, utterly vulnerable. Instead, Sara moves forward, faster than she ever has, a noise coming out of her mouth that is something close to Ava’s name.

She slams into Ava, pushing her sideways, towards solid wall and away from the window. She hears the sound of the glass of the window breaking.

Or maybe it is the other way around. Maybe she hears the glass break before she gets to Ava. She can’t tell. Her ears are ringing, her eyes are squeezed shut, and all she knows is that she is clinging onto Ava with everything that she has. She doesn’t want to open her eyes. Doesn't want to see, but she knows she has to, because if the shooter got Ava, then, depending on where it could've hit, she might only have seconds. Ava hadn't made a noise, but that doesn't mean anything. She could be in shock.

She could already be dead.

And then she hears Ava’s voice. “You just saved my life.” Her voice is shaky, disbelieving. “You just saved my life, Sara,” she repeats, shock evident.

Sara opens her eyes. Ava is looking at her, entirely alive, and clutching the towel around her with so much force that her knuckles are going white. A towel that, Sara notices, is still white. Completely. There isn’t blood anywhere. She looks Ava up and down, hands skating over her face, her neck, her shoulders, her arms. “He didn’t get you?” she asks, her voice frantic.

Ava shakes her head, points behind Sara. A bullet is embedded in their wall.

“No. No.” Ava's free hand comes to rest on Sara’s arm, and Sara realises that she is shaking, adrenaline and worry coursing through her. She can't stop the movement of her body, involuntary shivers running through her. “No. Sara. I'm fine.”

Sara closes her eyes, taking deep breaths. She can feel tears pricking at her eyelids, and she pushes them down. When she opens her eyes again, Ava is still looking at her. Sara kisses her, quickly, pushing her back against the wall, then pulls away.

“I'm sorry. I should've— I should've realised this might happen. I put you in danger by coming here. I should've just left.”

“No.”

“I should've just left, Ava.”

“No,” Ava repeats. “That's the League, right? They wanted you dead but I didn't kill you so they're trying again?”

Ava fits the pieces together so easily, without Sara even needing to tell her. It's a testament to her intelligence—but also to the fact that they were both too wrapped up in each other to really _think._

Sara nods.

“Why do you think they wouldn't have just come here and killed me anyway, even if you hadn't been here?”

And, oh, Sara hadn't thought about it like that.

“You saved my life, Sara. I'm better with you here,” Ava says, firm, and Sara nods again, swallows, regaining her composure.

“They're not going to just try once. They'll still be out there. I need a gun. Mine is still downstairs...” Sara trails off, then realises something. “Did you put a gun in here when you were turning our house into an armory?” Sara asks, a joke on her lips because it’s the only thing stopping her from collapsing in on herself, from thinking about how she was a split second from losing Ava in the worst way possible.

“I didn’t turn our house into a—” Ava shakes her head, stopping herself. “In the dresser. But I don’t think it’s going to be accurate enough over that distance.”

Sara just smiles, sadly. “That’s my job, babe, and I'm pretty good at it. I shoot people from a distance. With whatever’s to hand.”

“That’s not your job—”

“You’re right, sometimes I shoot them up close.”

“Sara…” Ava’s voice is sad. “That’s not you anymore.”

“It’s always going to be me, Ava,” Sara says, her voice rueful. She finds the gun, checking the chamber and firing mechanism with practised ease. She’s never used this particular gun before, but it hardly matters. The weight in her hand is familiar. “You're just going to have to accept that. Even if I stop, that's always going to be me. And you’re going to be glad of that when I get rid of this sniper.”

Ava opens her mouth to say something, and closes it.

Sara nods her head at Ava’s towel. “Stay down, away from the window. You need to get changed. We can’t stay here any longer, even if I take this guy out. They’ll be back. We’ll need to leave as soon as he’s down.”

“Okay.”

Ava moves away, starts rifling through their drawers, as if she can’t choose what to wear to flee their home.

Sara edges closer to the window, and she can feel Ava’s eyes on her. She peers around, and, through the cracked glass, can just about still see the glint of the sight. She’s hit targets with handguns from further away from this. She can do it. But first she needs the window open, and doing that will almost certainly attract his attention.

She turns back around. Ava is halfway changed, pulling a button-down shirt on over her shoulders. Sara is momentarily mesmerised by a drop of water hanging off one of the strands of Ava’s hair. It falls, creating a tiny wet patch on the front of the shirt.

Ava looks up after seeing Sara turn towards her.

“Sara?” Ava asks.

Sara briefly forgets what she was going to say, stuck staring at Ava. She shakes her head, clearing her mind, remembering. “He’s almost certainly going to shoot again when I open the window. You need to get as far away from the glass as possible. It’s not going to survive another bullet. It’s going to shatter, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“What about you?” Ava asks, asking the obvious question.

“I’ll be fine,” Sara says, gritting her teeth. “I’ve had worse.”

Not often, and glass is one of her least favourite ways to get hurt, but that doesn't matter. Not right now.

“You keep saying that,” Ava says. “That you’ve had worse. That doesn’t mean you have to keep getting yourself hurt. Keep doing this to yourself.”

The words trigger something inside her, and Sara is suddenly remembering her days with the League, bones broken in multiple places during sparring sessions, stab wounds and bullet wounds and bruises everywhere. Before she was eighteen, he'd helped her with the wounds. Afterwards, after she stopped being a trainee and became a full member, killing on her own, he stopped helping.

The first time she’d tried to get help with a wound after he stopped looking after her—when he had broken her arm after a failed hit—he had looked at her, and said, “You have to fix it yourself because you did this to yourself. By failing, Sara, you did this to yourself.”

Sara knows Ava doesn’t mean it like that, just wants to protect Sara, but she can’t help but hear Al Ghul’s voice echoing behind Ava’s words.

The anger that bubbles up inside her at the thought of him makes her want to snap, but she doesn’t, because all that is on Ava’s face is worry, so, instead, she just says, “Because I love you. And when you love someone, you stop them from getting hurt. So get back,” she finishes, her free arm finding Ava and pushing her back and away, away from the window and from Sara.

Ava steps forward, and Sara gives her one last look, no room for compromise, for argument.

Ava steps back.

Sara pushes the window open, and, a second later, a bullet flies through the glass.

The League had equipped the house with glass that would withstand normal bullets, but anything more secure would’ve been suspicious. So they knew that the glass was stronger than normal glass, and would be using bullets designed for this purpose, bullets with more power. Still, the glass had held up during the first shot, the bullet not shattering the pane, just punching a hole in it, cracks radiating from the jagged entrance.

The second bullet, however, blows the weakened glass apart. Sara throws her left arm up, covering her face. The second the glass settles, she’s flush by the side of the window, gun drawn.

She can feel pain in her arm, can see blood welling up out of the corner of her eye, but she's ignoring it. She knows she doesn’t have long, that the next bullet will come soon and that as soon as she looks round she’s a target. So she can’t miss. She takes a breath, grounding herself, then steps out from behind the wall. She’d done the calculations in her head as soon as she’d seen the shooter on the roof minutes earlier. Working out distance and angle and wind speed is as easy as breathing.

When she aims, she doesn’t miss. The sound of the gun going off is loud. The sound when it hits him, the gun toppling over as it loses his support, is quiet.

Ava’s voice is quiet when she says, “Did you get him?”

Sara nods. “Yeah. But we still need to go.”

“You’re bleeding,” Ava says, pointing to Sara’s arm, the one that had taken the full brunt of the blow.

Sara glances down, finally looking at it properly. It’s not bad, not by a long shot. She shrugs. “We’ll get the big bits out of it, I’ll stick a bandage on it, we’re ready to go.”

“Sara—"

“We don’t have time. We need to get to the Bureau. I can’t protect you here—”

“—I don't need protecting, Sara, I'm a government agent. I'm trained for this.”

Sara ignores her. “It's different, Ava. They're different. And I can't protect you from them in a house they designed. But they can’t have known who you were, otherwise they wouldn’t have tipped you off. They wanted me dead. They wouldn’t have told my wife if they'd known who you are. So they won’t be expecting us to go straight to the people who want me locked up, won't think I'd have an in. We’ll be safe there, at least until we can figure out a plan.”

Ava’s brow furrows, and she's clearly uncomfortable with the idea of not fully treating Sara, but Sara can see from her eyes that she knows it’s logical, knows it’s what they have to do.

And Ava was never one to argue with logic.

“Fine.”

Five minutes later, there's a hasty bandage wrapped around her arm.

Ten minutes later, they have a bag packed.

Fifteen minutes later, they're out the door, stepping over the debris left from their fight.

Ava turns around. “Are we ever coming back here?”

“Yes,” Sara says, firm. “There's no reason for the League to destroy it if we’re not in it. That would just draw unnecessary attention. We’re coming back, and we’re going to fix it and then—"

“We live happily ever after?” Ava suggests, her voice dry.

“Yep,” Sara says, and she is determined. She grabs Ava’s hand, squeezing it tight. “We live happily ever after.”

They can't risk being tracked, so their progress towards the Bureau is slow. At first, they are on foot. Then Ava hails a taxi, and they drive for fifteen minutes, before getting out. Sara looks around, realizing that during the ride she hadn't been paying attention to where they had been going, too wrapped up in Ava and her hands, where they were intertwined with Sara’s in Ava’s lap.

“We drove away from the city," she notes, with surprise.

“Yeah. I'm throwing them off the scent. We're getting a bus now.”

They get a bus, and then a train, and then the subway, and then, finally, they're in the city centre. It takes two hours. The drive would've taken twenty minutes, but Sara’s not going to complain. When they get to the Bureau, Sara realises that it is, in fact, the same office she'd visited a few times. She'd been assuming it would be somewhere completely different.

“This is actually where you work?” she asks, incredulous. “I figured that was a lie as well.”

Ava screws up her mouth. “It was half a lie. Our cover offices are on the first floor. Everything above that is the Bureau.”

Sara looks up. It's a giant building. Her assumption that it would be filled with more boring offices like Ava’s had gotten the better of her.

“I think on all the signage they're officially some sort of pharmaceutical company.”

That would be why Sara had assumed they would be filled with boring offices.

Ava pulls Sara away from the main entrance. “We don't go in that way.”

Sara lets Ava lead her around the side to a much more nondescript door. Ava enters a keycode and it swings open. Once they're inside, they're faced with an elevator. Ava pulls out a keycard, swipes it, and….

Nothing happens.

“That's weird,” Ava says, frowning. She swipes it again, and the elevator is still non-responsive.

Sara has a bad feeling about it, but when she speaks, she keeps her voice light. Maybe she's just being paranoid. “Those messages from your assistant. Did you listen to them? Maybe they changed the codes or something. Maybe you need a new card.”

Ava shakes her head, confusion evident on her face. “No. This has never happened before. They don't change the cards. It's never not worked before.”

Suddenly, the elevator springs into action, the sign indicating that it is moving down.

Ava smiles. “There we go.”

Sara can't smile. Something is definitely wrong. That sort of delay can't mean anything good. “Baby. What if it’s still broken?”

Ava turns to her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Sara says, gesturing to the elevator. “What if _you_ didn't make it do that?”

“You're not making sense.”

The elevator reaches their floor with a ‘ping.’

“What if they revoked your permissions?” Sara hisses, a split second before the doors open. “If someone is _coming down?”_

She hears a click behind her, knows that the door to the street, that they came through, has definitely been locked behind them, even before the elevator doors fully open and she sees three people, guns raised, pointed at her head.

Sara rolls her eyes. She's real sick of people pointing guns at her head. One of them, a tall man with sandy hair, speaks. “Hands behind your head. On the ground, now.”

Ava obviously knows who he is, because her expression is hurt, and she hesitates. “Rip— I mean, Director Hunter—" she starts, stopping when Sara glares at her.

“Get the fuck down,” Sara hisses. “Don't get yourself shot.”

She hasn't survived all of this just to let Ava get hurt by the people she _works_ for.

Ava sighs, but kneels, following Sara down to the ground. As she does, the man Ava called Rip speaks. “Good advice from your _wife_ , Agent Sharpe.” He’s English, Sara notes with slight surprise. It doesn’t make his words any less ugly. The way he says wife makes it sound like a bad word; Sara hates that.

He stands, next to one of the other men, older and Asian, just watching, not saying anything. The final man, nervous looking with dark hair, steps behind Sara, pulling her hands down, cuffing her.

Then he moves onto Ava.

Ava glares at him, and they are clearly very familiar with each other, because he apologizes as he pulls her hands down. She doesn't respond, just looks at him with disdain, before turning her attention back to the men in front of her.

“Director Hunter, Director Bennett, I—"

“Don't talk, Agent Sharpe. It'll only make things worse. You'll have time to explain yourself once we’ve got you in a cell.”

“I don't understand,” Ava says, her voice desperate, pleading.

“We reviewed the footage from the roof after you lost _her,”_ Rip says, venom in his voice as he points at Sara. “Realised who she was, that she was your wife, and that, against all protocol, you _let her go._ The woman you've been searching for for years, that you've spent countless hundreds of thousands of Bureau dollars on, and you let her go because of a _personal connection.”_

Ava’s head falls. Sara can see a hint of shame in her eyes. And then she looks up, and it is gone, replaced with defiance.

“I made a decision.”

“You made the wrong decision. And now you’re here to… what? Make sure you can't be punished for it? What was your intention coming here? Did you really think you could bring us down? Was she _that quick_ to turn you? To make you think you could achieve the impossible?”

The elevator pings again, and Sara turns, sees more men spill out, guns at the ready. She is almost flattered that they think they're this dangerous.

One of the men pulls her up, another one, feet away, doing the same to Ava. He starts patting her down, searching for weapons, and Sara fights the urge to push him away. Even with her hands cuffed, she could take him, easy. She could take all of them, if she tried. She can see her moves in her head. All she would have to do would be loop the chain of her handcuffs around his neck, and go from there.

It really _would_ be easy. But she doesn't do any of that. Instead, she grits her teeth, says. “You guys are fucking idiots.”

The man who must be Director Bennett turns to her. “Nobody asked you to speak, Miss Lance.”

“I don't give a shit. You guys are idiots. We’re not here on some sort of stupid mission to single-handedly take down the Bureau—"

“Technically there are two of us,” Ava says, like she can't help herself, and Sara almost laughs, because now is really not the time. “It's not single handed.”

“Ava,” she sighs, shaking her head. “Not the time.

“Right. Sorry,” Ava says, and her voice is dreamy, like she’s not entirely sure what’s going on, like her mind can’t process it. She’s probably never been handcuffed before. Never been in trouble like this before.

“The point,” Sara continues, “is that we’re here to _help_ you. You want to take down the League, and I can help.”

Hunter narrows his eyes. “Why should we believe you?”

“Because we come in peace,” Sara says. A split second later, the man frisking her pulls out the knife that was strapped to her side. She grimaces. “That one’s always there. Just in case.”

“You're not helping your case, Miss Lance.” Hunter pauses. “Or do you prefer to be called the Canary?”

Ava’s voice is loud when she interjects, says, “No, she doesn't prefer it! She was trying to get out of the business! That's why we got the tip about her. She didn't want to be the Canary anymore, didn't want to kill anymore, and they tried to get her taken out for that, you absolute idiots.” Her anger is palpable, struggling against her cuffs and the man holding her back, trying to stand up, to get closer to them.

“Ava,” Sara cautions. “Stop antagonizing them.”

“Stop being hypocritical, Sara. You called them idiots as well.”

“Yeah, but I haven't got anything to lose,” Sara says. She turns to look at the Directors. They are watching with detached amusement. “They already know I'm a killer. I can't get worse in their eyes. You can. You’re not like me.”

“I don't care,” Ava says.

“You should,” Sara says, then shifts her gaze, addressing the Directors. “You guys thought you would need to break me, right?” Ava had told her everything about the Bureau’s plans for her while they were on the way here. “Would need to spend time turning me, making me work with you?”

Hunter nods. “Those were _classified_ plans,” he says, staring pointedly at Ava. She doesn't break her eye contact with him, doesn't look guilty. “But, yes.”

Sara straightens up, tries to look as imposing as possible. “You don't need to do that. Don't need to waste time forcing information out of me. I'll tell you everything. On one condition.”

The men frisking her and Ava step back, obviously satisfied they've relieved them of their weapons. They stand, feet away, guns raised. They're surrounded, and yet, Sara knows she could still fight her way out, if she wanted to.

“You're not in the position to be making demands, Miss Lance,” Bennett says.

“I think I am,” Sara says. “The League is tracking me. It'll take a little while, but they'll find me here. And then your cover will be blown. So if you don’t get my intel, fast, and act on it… you're going to need another super secret base.”

It's, maybe, a bluff. She's not certain the League will find her here. Ava had been thorough in making sure their journey was untrackable.

Hunter calls her out. “You're bluffing.”

Sara raises an eyebrow, stays cool. “Maybe. But do you really want to find out?”

Hunter turns to Bennett, a silent conversation clearly going on.

Sara turns to Ava. Ava’s eyes are wide. Sara smiles, mouths, “I got this.”

Ava smiles back, but it is weak.

Hunter speaks. “What’s your condition?”

“Immunity. For both of us. No criminal records, no investigations. You let me off, and Ava goes back to work.”

Hunter shakes his head. “That's too much. You're a killer, Miss Lance.”

“Fine.” She wasn't expecting to get it, just wanted to seem like she was willing to negotiate. They were more likely to go for her second demand than her first, now that they knew that they needed her help. “Immunity for Ava. Do what you want with me—"

“No, Sara—" Ava tries to speak, but is interrupted.

“Deal,” Hunter says.

“No,” Ava says again, her voice bitter. “No deal. You're going to lock her up and she's never going to see the light of day. I know how you work. No trials because you think you're above the law. Because _we_ think we're above the law.”

And that was the other thing. Ava had been prepared to do whatever they had to do, had been prepared until the Canary had been Sara. They're both changing, because of this.

“She's a murderer. It's what she deserves.”

They're talking about Sara like she's not there, and she almost feels like she's not.

She looks at Ava, this woman who she loves. This woman who is trying so hard to defend her, even though, like Hunter is saying, she doesn't deserve it. This woman who she is going to lose. She accepts that, easily. It's inevitable. There had been a brief couple of hours where she had had an illusion of hope, but now things are back on track.

She commits the scene to memory, Ava’s eyes blazing, defiant, in defence of Sara. That will have to keep her going when she's lost Ava.

“Don't fucking say that,” Ava says, still angry. “She was forced into this.”

“She lied to you, Agent Sharpe,” says Hunter.

“You don't think I know that?” Ava asks, disbelieving. “You think that changes my mind? I love her.”

Sara motions Ava aside, turning their bodies away from the men in front of them. Her voice is quiet, trying for any semblance of privacy. “Ava, it’s fine. I should've known this would happen. I thought you could help me, vouch for me, but I didn't think about the fact that we’d have to be proving your innocence, too. I shouldn't have made you think this could end well. That's on me.”

Ava’s voice matches Sara’s in volume, rushing out her words in hurried whispers. “No. Sara. It's not fine. They're not locking you up. I won't let them. I'm not losing you again.”

“You can always visit me in prison,” Sara says, lightly.

“Not where they'll send you.” Ava's voice is dark.

For the first time, Sara is scared. She doesn't show it, though. Just turns back, raises her chin, looks at the Directors. If Ava gets out of this scot-free, it’s worth it. “Deal.”

“Sara—"

“Shut up, Ava. Deal. I help you take them down, Ava gets out of this unscathed, and you do what you want with me.”

Hunter nods. “Deal.” He pauses, then gestures at the elevator. “I suppose you should come up, then.”

“Do we have a choice?” Sara asks.

“No,” Hunter says. “Not at all.”

“Didn't think so. Are you at least going to uncuff us?” Sara asks. “Now that I'm working with you?”

“You earn that,” Bennett says.

“Fine. Uncuff Ava, at least.”

Bennett shakes his head, then motions, and Sara and Ava are unceremoniously shoved into the elevator, guards holding onto them.

“She gets uncuffed when you do. Call it incentive.”

The elevator doors close. The space is tight enough that Sara and Ava are finally close enough again to touch. Sara leans in, wishing she had her hands. “It'll be okay,” she breathes. Their faces are hidden by their hair. Ava looks at her, and there are tears on her face.

“No, it won't.”

“It'll be okay, baby. It'll be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's the last cliffhanger, I promise! The next chapter p much wraps up the main plot, and it's a big one - on par with chapter 7 in terms of length. we get even MORE speaking by characters who are not sara or ava can you believe it
> 
> Can you believe it's literally one chapter and an epilogue left because I Cannot. we're really on the finishing stretch
> 
> See you next week :)
> 
> @_avasharpe/directoravasharpe.tumblr.com


	10. i'm locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from yellow flicker beat by lorde 
> 
> I hope you're ready for a rollercoaster, ladies. This is the chapter that EVERYTHING HAPPENS IN. it's hecka long. like 8000 words plus long so. settle down. don't start this before work or right before sleeping lmao. get the tissues bc i never really get emo reading my own stuff and i got a bit emo during last rereads so.

They're dumped, but thankfully together, in an interrogation room.

The man, who Ava calls Gary, and who still seems incredibly nervous around them, uncuffs them long enough to re-attach them to the table. Sara could’ve made a move while she was temporarily free. Once again, she doesn’t. She’s not doing anything now that could mess up the deal, mess up Ava’s chances.

“Make them a bit looser, Gary,” Ava says, her voice imposing.

“Right. Yes.” He pauses, his expression shifting. “Wait. No. I don't have to listen to you anymore.”

“Make them looser,” Ava repeats, her jaw tight, and Gary balks, doing what she says.

Sara hasn't seen this side of Ava much, commanding and in charge, and it's _something_ , something that stirs something inside of Sara, something that makes her wish that they weren’t locked up, almost certainly being recorded.

Something that makes her wish that they were ever going to have time alone again.

When he is gone, and they are alone, Ava looks around. The fight that was in her eyes when Gary was there, the confidence, the self-assuredness, is gone. “I never thought I'd be on this side of the table.”

“I'm sorry,” Sara says, and she instinctively shifts away, because this is her fault. Her fault for stupidly assuming that they would still trust Ava, for forgetting what Ava had done to let her go.

Ava notices the movement, and Sara sees her try to move her hand, trying to draw Sara back in, before remembering that they are bound, her hand stopping three inches up from the table, too far away from Sara to be any sort of comfort. “Sara. No. That's not what I meant.” She sighs. “This isn't your fault. I could've just taken you in, while they still trusted me. But I just… couldn't. Not then. And now we’re here, and it's so much worse, and that's on _me_.”

Sara shakes her head. “You told me what they were going to do to me to get me to talk. You couldn't have known that they wouldn't have needed that. That I would’ve talked anyway. You made the right decision.”

“How?” Ava asks, disbelieving, her mouth open, staring at Sara. “How is this the right decision, Sara? We’re handcuffed. At their mercy.”

“Only until I tell them what they need to know. Then we help them take down the League, and—"

“And you get locked up.” Ava almost growls it, anger and hurt and sadness behind the almost aggression.

“And you go free,” Sara counters, ignoring Ava’s words.

“But I won't have you. You said you were here as long as I wanted you!” Ava's voice is bitter, the hurt still obvious. “I still want you, and you're just giving up on us.”

“I'm not—" Sara stops as she feels her voice rising. “Things were different when I said that. I'm not giving up on us. I'm giving _you_ a second chance. There's a difference.”

“I don't want a second chance without you,” Ava says.

“Tough,” Sara says, her voice rueful. “You're getting one.”

Ava just stares at her, blinking slowly.

There is a hint of water on her lower lash line, tears pooling up but not quite spilling over.

“Why don't I get a say in this?” Ava asks.

“Because they clearly wanted someone locked up, and I wasn't going to let it be you!” Sara says, and then she sighs, the fight falling away. “Look. Ava. Can we— can we please not argue? I don't want my last memories of you to be bad.”

Ava considers for a second, and then doesn't say anything, just nods, slowly. She shrinks into herself, defeat obvious.

“Thank you.”

Sara shifts back closer, resting her head on Ava’s shoulder—the only contact they can manage from their positions—and closes her eyes.

“These aren't going to be our last memories,” Ava says. “I promise. I’ll figure something out.”

Sara can't say anything, so she doesn't.

They are still silent when the door opens, when Hunter enters, his eyes hard. Seeing them so close, his face twists. Sara knows he hates her, hates that she corrupted his perfect agent. She's good enough at reading people to be able to tell that.

He sits down, says, “Are you ready, Miss Lance?”

Sara pulls herself away from Ava, reluctantly, and leans forward, resting on her forearms. She takes a breath. Steadies herself. She can’t waver now, not anymore. She’s got to do this, for Ava. “Are _you_ ready?”

“I assure you, Miss Lance, I am.”

Sara raises an eyebrow. “If you say so.”

“Tell me everything. Right from the beginning. If you leave anything out, the deal is off.”

Sara turns, looks at Ava, an apology on her face. She speaks, quietly. “I didn't want you to hear everything like this. I wanted to do it slowly, in my own time. Obviously that’s not going to happen now. This is my only chance to tell you everything, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter how I do it. But you deserve to hear it.” She pauses. “If you feel differently after this, I get it.”

She can’t bring herself to say the words she feels in her heart—that it doesn’t even _matter_ if Ava feels differently, because this is the end.

“Get on with it, Lance,” Hunter says.

Sara notices that he has dropped the title. She doesn't care. It's not as if this relationship is actually one of respect, as if she was ever going to call this man who she is only working with out of necessity _Director_.

Sara looks at Ava once more. Ava nods, a tiny movement. In the handcuffs, Ava’s fingers are restless. All Sara wants to do is stop them, but she can't, so she tears her eyes away, sets her jaw, and starts talking.

Starts from the beginning. From the time after her parents and sister died, died mysteriously, leaving behind Sara, known for being tough and being a martial arts champion by the age of twelve, known for being the police chief’s daughter and taking no shit, even at fourteen.

From the time when the League had somehow adopted her, had disappeared her from the system and spat her out as a shiny new person, completely theirs to control.

Ava had talked about knowing some things, but it is clear she doesn't know _everything_ , because Sara sees her flinch every so often when Sara mentions something particularly bad.

Like the time Ra’s made her do firing practice for fifteen hours straight, not letting her rest until she hit the bullseye ninety-nine times out of a hundred. How he had kept counting, and every time she missed more than once, the hundred started again.

Like the time, the day after she turned eighteen, that he made her attempt her first hit. How she had failed, and how he'd broken her arm for it.

How sometimes they starved her and sometimes they beat her and sometimes they just left her alone, for days on end, with nothing to do and no-one to talk to, because loneliness and boredom have to be conquered if you’re to be an assassin.

Sara talks through it all, for the first time ever, and realises there are gaps in her memory, where she has just blocked it all out.

She remembers Nyssa, but her brain refuses to give her details on exactly how it ended. She remembers screaming and crying for days, but not much more.

She remembers a particularly bad injury, the worst one she ever had, and bleeding out on the floor of her room in their HQ, but she doesn’t remember how she survived, if they helped her or if she managed to fix herself up, even while half dead.

She knows that, one time, they took her to her parent’s graves. She has a memory of a car. She doesn’t remember where it was, or what their headstones looked like, or anything that she said. Maybe she didn’t say anything.

Once she gets through her training, though, it's easier. There were less emotions, less highs and lows once she was no longer living with Ra’s, once she had distance.

So she remembers everything.

She describes those years easily. Even if she had been utterly, utterly broken, they don’t need to know that, not really. They just need to know about the League in those years, and that information is monotonous, boring. Just people to kill and a check in every six months. No juicy information about their brutal torture methods or their HQ or their training regime.

Hunter doesn’t need to know about the drinking or the strangers she’d pass the night with or the sleepless nights she had when she wasn’t in someone else’s bed.

As long as she pushes down the pain that those years brings back, talking about it is easy.

But then she gets to the part where she meets Ava, and Ava starts shifting more, discomfort evident on her face. It's not like Sara is sharing anything intimate, not like she's talking about anything private.

As much as she’d love to make Hunter squirm more, would love to see his face if she _really_ talked about everything they had done, what she’d done _to_ Ava, she doesn’t, she wouldn't, ever.

(She wouldn't even talk about that if it was necessary. What they had was theirs. Even if they hadn’t reconciled, even if she’d been brought in when she should’ve been, she still wouldn’t have talked about _that_. Their nights were theirs, and only theirs. She could never betray Ava like that. Even if Ava had betrayed _her_.)

So it’s not that Sara is saying anything particularly personal. She’s not talking about sex or dates or all the nights they’d spent sleepless, wrapped in other each other. It's that she's detailing every lie, every story she had to tell, and she can see Ava rewriting their history in her head. But she has to, had to say it all, because a lot of the orders, what to tell Ava and when to and how to, had come from the League. It's all information.

Everything she can tell helps add to their chances.

At one point, she pauses, leaning back for a second. Hunter lets out a breath. “I didn’t think you’d be able to give us that much, Lance. I’m almost impressed.”

“No,” she says. “I’m not done. I just want some water. And for you to uncuff us. I think I’ve given you enough to warrant that, at least.”

Hunter considers, then speaks into his earpiece. “Gary? Water.”

Sara wriggles her wrists pointedly.

He looks at them, and then sighs, pulling out a key from his pocket and reaching over to unlock their cuffs.

They fall away from their wrists, and Sara can’t quite hold back a sigh of relief. She’s been handcuffed before, so the marks on her wrist don’t bother her much, but being pulled forward had been uncomfortable.

Beside her, Ava shakes out her hands, clearly relieved as well. Sara is pretty sure that Ava _hasn’t_ been handcuffed before, and it hurts her heart that she had to be stuck for so long, stuck at the awkward angle they had put her in, all because of Sara.

If Sara were her, she would be bitter, annoyed at the person who had made her have to suffer through that. But Ava, because she is Ava, too understanding and forgiving for her own good, just turns to Sara, smiles weakly, and pulls Sara’s hand below the table, holding it tight.

Clinging on, as though she needs it.

Sara had thought she had been fine being so close to Ava without being able to properly touch her, but the second Ava’s fingers intertwine with hers, she knows she’s not letting go until they force her to. Ava squeezes her hand, reassuring her.

When Sara drags her eyes away from their fingers, she looks up to see the same disdain in Hunter’s eyes as when he had first entered the room.

It _shouldn’t_ annoy her—anyone who knew the truth would justifiably disapprove of her, and she _knows_ that—but it still does, and so she leans into it, pulling their hands up, setting them on the table, in plain sight. Ava starts, slightly, but doesn’t move to pull away.

Sara raises an eyebrow in Hunter’s direction, a challenge. He coughs, the sound loud in the silence, and shifts in his seat, and turns away, and Sara feels like she’s won. “Gary. The water?” he says, and his voice is slightly strained.

The door bursts open, and Gary stumbles in, balancing three glasses of water between his hands. Hunter rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything as he sets the water down.

“Anything else?” Gary asks, clearly still nervous.

Sara glares at him when he glances over at her. Ava’s face isn’t any more sympathetic.

“No.” Hunter’s voice is hard. “That’ll be all.”

Sara sees Gary’s eyes travel towards her now uncuffed hands. She curls the hand that isn’t holding Ava’s into a fist, as if just to suggest what she could be capable of, now that she’s unrestricted.

Gary jumps backwards, and Sara lets her mouth fall into a sweet smile. Too sweet. She knows it doesn’t reach her eyes. He hits the door, fumbles for the handle, and then is gone, never taking his eyes off Sara, as if, if he does, she’ll pounce.

She turns back to Hunter, shaking her head. She almost feels bad. She _shouldn’t_ be this annoyed with them. She wouldn’t have been, had they not greeted them with guns and handcuffs instead of the gratefulness they should’ve. Had they not decided to treat Ava like a criminal. Sure, Ava had made a decision that was against the rules, but she’d also given them years of her life.

Seeing her sitting next to Sara, her expression defeated, makes Sara’s blood boil.

So she isn’t going to be getting any nicer to the Bureau or its agents, not if they’re going to have such a black and white view of things. She’ll tell them what they needed to know, she’ll do what she has to do to get rid of the League—but she isn’t going to do it with a smile on her face.

Sara picks up the water, drains the glass in one. Apparently, she was thirstier than she’d realised, her mouth dry from talking almost non-stop for hours.

“You ready to go again?” she asks.

“Only if you are, Lance.”

“I’m always ready. That’s another thing they teach you in the League. Be ready for anything. Jot that down. They’ll be ready. You guys will have to be readier.”

“I assure you, we will be. We’re prepping teams as we speak. We’ve been trying to take down the League for years. Everyone has trained for this. Everyone knows the plan for when we have enough evidence and intel to strike.”

“They’ll have trained longer. And harder. And with less rules. They won’t have any qualms killing everyone you put in front of them, if you’re not careful.”

“Careful is what we excel at.”

“You let one of your top agents marry the enemy.”

“An… oversight.”

“Sure.” She pauses. “You’re going to need the rest of my intel if you’ve got any chance of succeeding.”

“It’s a common goal, Lance. If they find you, they’ll kill you.”

Sara doesn’t need reminding.

“Not if I get to them first.”

She starts talking again.

When she gets to the end, gets to the most recent information, it's hours after they had started, and she gets even more detailed, more careful, trying to pour out every possible fact that could be useful.

She’s going down after this no matter what, but if she fails, if the information she gives isn’t enough to take them down, the Bureau might not keep their promise regarding Ava, and Sara isn’t willing to take that risk, so she’s racking her brain, giving every possible titbit of information.

The League had always been secretive, but Sara had learnt a lot over the years. Details she was given when she needed them for hits. Information about their headquarters, from the few times she’d visited since she’d left.

The fact that the last time she’d visited had been hardly more than a day ago is a stroke of luck. The League had really misjudged this one, by not killing her the second she’d asked to leave. Letting the government do their dirty work had been sloppy, and if Sara had anything to do with it, it was going to be their downfall, because she remembers everything. Al Ghul had taught her to notice everything about her surroundings, to store them away, to perfectly memorise the information.

So it isn’t hard for her to spill the details about every bit of the building she had seen. In fact, it’s easy. After hours of talking, albeit indirectly, about Ava, this truly _is_ easy. This is just describing rooms and cameras and key codes and exit routes. She can do this like breathing. Al Ghul had made sure of it.

Everything she has left to say, she says, until she doesn’t think she has a single secret anymore, not from Ava, not from Hunter, not from any of the hundreds of people who are probably listening to her every word.

She collapses in her seat. She's said everything, and she feels free, but at the same time feels the weight she has put on Ava's shoulders. Ava has always felt Sara's pain so acutely, and it has to be kiling her.

But they’re not done, not even when Sara has run out of words to say, because more agents, more people she doesn’t know enter the room, and then they’re discussing plans of attack and game plans and Sara is so exhausted that she’s hardly listening.

She’s not even physically tired, just mentally drained.

Ava is talking with Hunter, her voice calm and measured, like she’s just ignoring the fact that only a few hours ago she was cuffed, like she doesn’t even remember that they still distrust her.

Or maybe she just doesn’t care, can put her duty above her emotions. Sara wishes she could do that. Wishes that her emotions weren’t plastered on her face like she knows they must be. She _knows_ her emotions must be evident, because when Ava turns to her, after Sara hasn’t said anything for a couple of minutes, her face is worried.

“You okay?” Ava asks, her voice quiet.

“Yeah,” Sara says. Ava’s thumb makes circles in Sara’s palm. “I just want this over with.”

Ava hesitates before she says, “Yeah. I— I suppose.”

Sara’s an idiot. Of course Ava doesn’t want this over with. Doesn’t want to have to lose Sara. But that’s what’s happening. There is nothing Sara can say to make it better, so she doesn’t. Just turns back to the men in front of her, her face hard.

Ava does the same. She still doesn’t drop Sara’s hand, though, doesn’t drop it when they’re told that they’re moving. She keeps Sara tight at her side as they walk through corridors that Ava is obviously at home in, but that feel like they’re suffocating Sara, because she hates the place. Hates the walls and the people and the way it all makes her feel.

Sure, she knows that the Bureau are, strictly, the good guys, but Ra’s Al Ghul had instilled in her a healthy dose of distaste for the government, and that had only been cemented by an adulthood where she has seen nothing but pain, pain that the government hasn’t fixed, and so her feelings are sour.

But she has a cause, an aim, and she’s going to see it through, even if means working with government stiffs, in their matching suits, with matching frowns.

Suits and frowns that only look good on Ava.

Ava who, when she finally lets go of Sara’s hand to talk to another person Sara doesn’t know, keeps glancing over, intensely aware of where Sara is at all times, keeping an eye on her, as if, if Ava does not keep track, Sara might disappear.

Sara just watches from the side of the room, a loose end, the person who doesn’t belong here.

Before long, Ava is back at Sara’s side. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice low. “But you need to talk to these people.”

“Don’t they already know everything I said? Doesn’t everyone here? Surely they already know everything about me, now.” She shouldn’t be bitter. She did this willingly, would do it over and over again for Ava, to keep her safe, but she can’t help the edge in her voice.

“No, Sara. You don’t need to tell them anything more.” Ava’s voice is soothing, calming her down, keeping Sara from getting truly angry. Sara wants to kiss her. To drag her away from this place. To run away from all of this. But she can’t; all she can do is listen to what Ava says, and do as she’s told. “You just need to know the final plans. They need your input.”

Apparently they’re already on final plans. Sara is beginning to lose track of time, but it can’t have been long. They were, perhaps, more prepared for this than Sara had given them credit for. She’d known they’d have to work quickly, but part of didn’t believe they’d be able to be quick enough.

Part of her thought she’d end up dead no matter what.

Part of her had only spilled as much as she had in the hope that even if this ended badly, they might give Ava some lenience.

But, now, maybe they do have a chance.

The men with faces that blur into each other explain the plan. The plan with Sara at the forefront, because, of course, she is the one they are most willing to risk. They don’t say it like that, they talk about her _expertise_ , and her _knowledge_ , but she knows what the looks on their faces mean. Knows that they don’t trust her, know that they don’t care if she dies, that she is the most expendable.

She understands. She’d always considered herself expendable, too. It was only once she met Ava that she started to believe that maybe, maybe, she should try not to die.

But they’re splitting them up after this, anyway, so it no longer matters if she dies. Ava is losing her, either way.

Ava speaks up. “I want to be on the front line, too.”

Hunter looks at her, briefly. “Obviously.”

“No,” Sara says. That’s not what she wants. She needs Ava to be at the back somewhere, maybe not even on the ground, maybe back here, overseeing. She has to be sure to survive this, or it’s all for nothing. “No. No.”

“It’s not up for discussion. Agent Sharpe is one of our best operatives. This has always been her mission. She… brought you in, in a roundabout way. She’s on the ground, and that’s final.”

“Ava…” Sara says, tugging at Ava’s arm, twisting their bodies away from the others. “Please. You can’t do this. Just stay back here. Run mission control. Anything. Please.”

“No. I'm sorry. I can't stay back. I’d have to be there, even if you weren’t here. But you _are_ here, and you're an idiot if you think I'm letting you go into this fight alone.”

This fight, this fight against her former employers, this fight where Sara knows she’s going to show her true self, the one that, surely, will be the final nail in the coffin for Ava and her feelings for Sara. Will surely be the thing that makes her finally see Sara for who she is, who she’s always been: a murderer.

“I don’t want you to see me in there. I’m not going to be holding back. You’re not going to like what you see.”

“I’ve seen you in action, Sara,” Ava says, her fingers going absentmindedly to the graze on her head.

Sara shakes her head. “You haven’t. I was holding back. It was you. I won't be holding back this time.”

Ava sighs. “It doesn’t matter. I have to be there.”

“It's not _safe.”_

 _“_ I'm a trained government operative, Sara. This is my _job.”_

“Ava—"

“It’s final,” Ava says, echoing Hunter’s words. Her jaw is set. The argument is over.

And then it’s a blur of people and weapons and screens with plans and maps and blueprints and then they’re alone in the equipment room and Ava is handing her weapons and she can’t think.

So she closes her eyes, takes a breath, remembers what she’s doing this for. She’s useless if she can’t fight, so she has to be able to think.

When she opens her eyes, the noise in her mind has faded, slightly.

Ava is examining a gun.

“I love you,” Sara says. Ava looks up.

“I know.”

Sara nods, leans in close, presses a kiss onto Ava’s lips. _A last kiss_ , she thinks, and then Ava is saying, “No,” and maybe Sara had said that out loud. Ava pushes her backwards, against the door, and her mouth is hot on Sara’s. Her voice is angry when she says, “Not a last kiss,” against Sara’s lips.

“Okay,” Sara says, and she knows neither of them believe that she believes what she's saying.

“I love you, too,” Ava says, and it's the only thing she _can_ say.

They’re in a car.

They’re out of the car.

It’s dark outside. Sara has no idea what time it is. She lets out a breath, and it clouds in front of her. The League’s headquarters are the definition of nondescript. But she knows what it hides. Who it hides. Al Ghul is too trusting in his security. He sleeps there. She knows that.

He won’t be sleeping there much longer.

The directive is to kill if only absolutely necessary. They didn’t say anything about serious injury. She will make him hurt if she needs to.

Sara and Ava are the front of one of the wings of attack, taking the main entrance. Other teams take the back, the sides. Some of them go underground. There is a team landing on the roof. The entryway is deceptively quiet. Sara knocks the night receptionist out. Then the bullets start, but Sara hardly even notices them. There are people behind her whose mission it is to take anyone out who might try to get to Sara.

Sara’s job is to get to the elevator, get to Al Ghul’s private quarters. Ava’s job is to stay with her, to help any way she can.

Agents surround them, shooting with perfect aim as they wait for some techie in the Bureau basement to hotwire the elevator.

Words come over the comms. The other teams are securing their areas. Everything is going to plan. They get into the elevator, Sara and Ava and a whole team of agents whose names, if they had had more time, Sara might have tried to learn. But they hadn’t had time, so they’re just guns and faces.

The elevator doesn’t go all the way up to Al Ghul’s quarters, but they knew that. This is where Sara’s intimate knowledge comes in handy, as she leads them up stairs and through dark corridors.

These are the corridors she knows, dark and gloomy in contrast to Ava's bright white ones. The corridors she had lived in while she trained. The corridors she had lived in with Nyssa, before Nyssa got sent away. Where her life had fallen apart as they broke her into the assassin they needed to be.

Doors protected with keycodes fall open easily with tech support in her ear.

All the while, Ava is keeping perfect pace with her. The perfect agent. Sara doesn’t know how she missed it, because this is so clearly what Ava was born for. The way she moves makes it clear that she is built for this. She’s light on her feet, her eyes constantly sweeping, checking out for danger. The gun is like an extension of her arm, hardly looking like it’s weighing her down.

She’s calm, collected, in control. She’s the same Ava Sara had always known, but at the same time, she’s completely different.

They're met with a team of guards, and they go down easily. Sara is ruthless. She doesn't kill any of them, doesn't go against orders, but they're still going to be hurting for a long time. Most of them go down cleanly, but a couple require her to use her knife, get up close, and, for the third time that day, she’s covered in blood. Only, this time, it’s not her own. She’s not the one hurting, not anymore.

The Bureau med team had done given her something for the pain in her stomach, had put an extra layer of bandages on it, and so she hardly thinks about it.

Every time she takes a guard down particularly quickly, particularly brutally, Sara sees something flash behind Ava’s eyes. Sees something pass over her face as she takes in the blood on Sara’s clothes, her skin.

But Ava doesn't say anything, because Sara had warned her what she was going to see, and Ava had accepted it, and she is keeping to her unspoken promise, and not commenting. Not voicing the pain that Sara knows is there.

They don't have time to talk about it, anyway. There are always more guards. The building, even at night, seems to be nothing but guards.

They keep coming, but it’s okay, because, even though she and Ava have never fought side by side before (only against each other), it's like instinct. They know each other so well that's it's only natural, only right and good that they would move together like they've been training with each other their whole lives.

Ava moves, and Sara mirrors her. Sara goes high, and Ava goes low.

They’re dancing in time, and it's all such a _waste_. Such a waste that they work together so well, and that they were both hiding this for so many years. Such a waste that this will be the last time they fight together.

Everything is such a goddamn shame. When the guards are nothing but a pile of unconscious bodies, they move on. They are almost there.

Sara is sure of that.

And then the door to the true inner sanctum is looming. Al Ghul’s quarters, the rooms she had only been in a handful of times, but had walked past more times than she can count.

The door is open.

It shouldn’t be open (they had explosives and lock picking devices and everything ready for this door, and it’s just _open_ ), and yet, they still walk through, because what else can they do?

When the door slams shut behind the two of them, it’s hardly even a surprise. Al Ghul is awake. Obviously. Sara doesn’t know what else she was expecting.

“I don’t suppose you’re surprised to see me?” Sara says, lightly.

“No. You’re a tricky one to kill.”

“Many have tried. And failed.” Sara tilts her head. “You know, if you wanted me dead, you should’ve just done it yourself.”

“That much is clear, now, but I’m rather glad I didn’t.” His voice is quiet. “You can still come back. We’ll forgive your transgressions if you just come back. It would be so much better for everyone. You could save yourself so much pain.”

“I’m not in pain.” Sara grits her teeth. “I'm fine.”

“I think you are in pain, Sara. And it’s only going to get worse when you realise that _she_ doesn’t love you. That _nobody_ could love you. It would be so much easier to just give in, to cut her loose, to come back to us. She’s nothing. She lied to you. She’s just using you to get to me. You’re just a puppet.”

“No, Sara, I promise—" Ava’s voice, from behind her, is shaky.

A look from him shuts Ava up, abruptly. Sara hates that. Hates how he’s making Ava feel. That’s the worst thing. Not what his words are doing to her, but to what they’re doing to Ava, Ava who she can’t even _see_ , because she doesn’t dare turn her head away from him, not even for a second.

Sara shakes her head. “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” she says, stepping closer. She notices that he doesn't seem to be armed. That’s going to be the last mistake he makes—thinking he could turn her back to his side with just words, thinking he could convince her that Ava doesn’t love her. “You're so wrong.”

He doesn’t have that sort of control over her anymore.

“Shame. I was so looking forward to working with you again.”

Sara pauses, then asks, “I suppose you knew we’d come?”

“I assumed you would, after you evaded the agent I sent to your home. I’ve been waiting.”

“We brought backup. You know that, right? We have the whole building.”

“I have an escape route for us. The only people in this building tonight were expendable. They didn't know that, of course, but it's just business. You were worth the risk. You’re worth more than all of them. You’re the best agent I ever trained. You don’t need _love_ , Sara. You need us. Your home.”

“You’re not my—”

Ra’s keeps speaking, slowly, quietly, like he’s casting a spell on her. “I really was glad to have a chance to speak to you, to bring you back. Sara. I was loathe to give the order to kill you. That wasn’t what I wanted, you have to understand.”

 _But you still gave it,_ Sara thinks. His manipulation is obvious. He plays with people's lives like it's a game. He didn't feel bad about trying to have her killed. He probably didn't feel anything. It was all just a calculation. At the time, killing her had been the best option. When she dodged that, bringing her back became the most attractive choice. It was a numbers game.

“You thought you would be able to turn me back.”

“I had hoped so,” he says, but for the first time, there is a waver in his voice. “But I can see now that was futile. It’s a shame. You really were the best operative I ever trained. But that’s all you are. What I _made you_. It seems fitting, I suppose, that I’m the one who kills you, in the end.”

Sara notices the knife that is now in his hand too late to do anything about it. Maybe he really had been getting to her, his voice hypnotising her, casting her back to when she was fourteen and scared, because she never usually would’ve missed something like that. The instincts he had drilled into her wouldn’t have let her miss that. His training fails her as he moves to end it all.

But Ava doesn’t miss the knife. The sound of the gunshot is loud, echoing around the room. Blood spreads on his shirt.

He must’ve known Ava had a weapon. Sara had been wrong. It wasn’t underestimating Sara that was his last mistake. It was underestimating Ava.

Underestimating her wife.

He stumbles forward, gasping. Sara takes the opportunity, uses his momentary confusion to punch him, hard, everything she has, all her anger, every time he hurt her, going into that blow. The knife falls out of his hand, and he collapses. She’s not sure if the punch was strictly necessary, if Ava’s shot would’ve been enough to knock him out, but it felt good, anyway.

Sara had never managed to get a hand on him even once when she was training.

She finally turns back to Ava, and her face is white. “Did I kill him?” Ava asks, her voice hardly louder than a whisper.

When Sara looks down, she can see the shallow rising and falling of his chest. He’s not dead. Just knocked out, the combination of Ava’s bullet and Sara’s fist, and from the brief glance she gets at the wound, Sara can tell that Ava missed any of the spots that would’ve been lethal.

“No, baby. He’s not dead. I think you got his collarbone. Nasty scar, but it’s not going to kill him.”

Ava's expression is shocked. “But I, I— didn’t care if I killed him. I didn’t care. He was going to—" she looks at Sara, and there is anguish in her eyes. “I shot and I didn't care if I killed him. I broke protocol. I should've— I should've thought first. But he was going to— And all those things he was saying to you, fuck— God, I— God I _wanted_ to kill him.”

“Ava. It's okay.” Sara closes the gap between them, pulling Ava close, hugging her tight, before shifting back to look at her. When she speaks, her voice is earnest. “It's okay to want that. But you _didn't_ kill him.”

“I could’ve.”

“You didn’t.”

And then men finally burst through the door that had closed behind them, too late to be of any real use. Al Ghul lies at Sara’s feet. The agents pull him up, bundling him out, pressing their hands over the wound. Somehow, Sara knows she will never see him again.

And then Ava’s eyes widen, and before Sara can do anything, there’s a voice in her ear. “Drop your weapon, Lance.”

She does, without thinking, and then her hands are back behind her back, and she's being dragged away from Ava.

Ava unfreezes, racing forward. “No. Not now. Not right now. Give us a little more time. Let her go.” She pauses, and when the hands around Sara’s wrists don't loosen, says, “That’s an order.”

“I don’t take orders from you anymore, Agent,” comes the voice. Sara doesn’t struggle. There’s no point.

She just looks at Ava. Wishes there was anything she could say to make it right.

There isn’t.

They're handcuffing her again, the metal tight around her wrists. Ava looks at her, then speaks, her voice frantic, pushing out last words before Sara is gone. “He didn't make you, Sara. You're so much more than that.”

Sara just nods.

“I love you,” Ava says, and then they're pulling Sara away, and it's horrible, but there's no point struggling.

Sara mouths it back.

They've got two men flanking her, like they know what she's capable of. It doesn't matter. She wouldn't fight it anyway. This is what she agreed to. She’s not going to go back on her promise, not if it might hurt Ava.

But even if Sara doesn’t struggle, Ava does, and someone has to hold her back as they take Sara away, leading her back through the halls she had led a team through only minutes ago. Empty halls, empty of guards. Empty of the League.

They put her in a car with the Directors.

“You’ll keep your end of the bargain?” Sara asks.

“Agent Sharpe can return to work. We won’t punish her.”

“If I find out you haven’t kept your promise, I’ll kill you all.” Sara glares at them, and they just stare back, their expressions unaffected.

“You’ll be in prison.”

“That won’t stop me.”

“No, maybe not,” Hunter concedes.

Sara slumps against the seat. “Tell her I love her.”

“I’m sure she already knows.”

That's fine. She wouldn't want those words in their mouth anyway. The plea was desperate, without thinking. Sara looks away, towards the window. The glass is darkened.

“Where are you taking me?”

“That would be telling.”

She doesn’t even notice the needle in her arm until she is already falling asleep.

 

When she wakes up, she is in a cell.

She wakes up there the next day, and the day after that.

Her cell is bare. She's never been one to decorate, but now she wishes she had something to cover the endless grey. The prison is nothing but endless grey, but she gets used to it, quickly, because there is no point railing against this, no point trying to deny her new reality.

She’s being punished for what she’s done, and she accepts that. That's how the world works. That's how civilized society works. If you kill people, they lock you away.

If you kill lots of people, they lock you away for longer.

They’re not cruel to her, but it doesn’t matter. Being alone with her thoughts is enough. The faces of everyone she has killed flash through her mind, faces she thought she had forgotten, faces that being with Ava had helped to repress.

Maybe that was their intention.

There’s no-one else in the prison with her except the guards (and they rotate, never staying long enough for her to get to know them) because, apparently, she’s dangerous, and needs to be kept away from other people. Or maybe they just don’t want anyone else knowing how she got here, that there was no due process, no trial. Just a bargain. Her life in exchange for Ava’s.

A month in, she hears arrivals, but never sees them. She can only assume that it is the rest of the League, finally rounded up. She is grateful, at least, that they are kept separate. She knows she could take at least a couple of them in a fight, maybe four or even five at a push.

But she could not take every person who used to work for the League, if they found out she was the reason they’re imprisoned, so she is glad that they stay invisible, behind walls and doors that she can’t go through, and she stays as the only resident of her block.

(She is _mostly_ glad. Going down in a fight seems like a slightly attractive option, the longer she is left alone with nothing _engaging_ to do.

And maybe, maybe, there is a tiny part of her, the part of her still influenced by the League, that whispers in her ear and tells her that she _betrayed_ them and and she deserves to die for that. Most of the time she can ignore that. Most of the time.)

The guards pretty much let her do what she wants.

She works out until every part of her body hurts and she feels like throwing up. She reads, more than she probably has in her entire life. They let her watch the TV, so she keeps up with the news. The world is terrible, obviously. There is no mention of the Bureau, obviously, but that’s the only reason she keeps watching, desperately, hopelessly hoping she’ll hear something.

When all things are considered, it’s not so different to the life she used to lead before she met Ava. Solitary. Lonely. Rattling around in a building built for many more people than just her.

There is less alcohol in her life now, less meaningless sex, and less indiscriminate killing, but apart from that, it’s almost the same.

Monotonous. Boring.

But she survived then, and she can survive now.

Of course, she'd been teetering on the edge of oblivion before she had met Ava, and it's not fun to be back there, but it’s worth it, though, to know that Ava is out there, living and breathing and free.

It hurts to think about her, of course, to think about what she’s lost, but the pain stops her from going completely crazy. It waxes and wanes. Sometimes it gets better. Sometimes she has two weeks solid of nightmares and it hurts to breathe.

Sometimes, after she wakes up, there are blissful seconds where she forgets where she is, where, before she opens her eyes, she can imagine she is back at home.

Most of the time, though, the pain is just a steady ache. Sometimes the guards see her dull eyes, take pity on her, and tell her about Ava, because, apparently, everyone knows exactly who she is and what she’s done and what she’s lost. She lives on those titbits for days, although there’s no way of checking their veracity, but they’re all she has, so she takes them.

Then, three months into her stay, she gets a letter from Ava. It’s short, hardly anything. Doesn’t tell Sara anything, except that Ava is alive, back working at the Bureau, and that the Bureau almost, almost trusts her again.

There are sections crossed out, sections redacted. The Bureau obviously doesn’t want Sara knowing their secrets.

But it’s enough. Ava’s handwriting is still the same, overly fancy and ornate, and too difficult to replicate for it to be from anyone but her own hand. At the bottom, Ava signs it off with an ‘I love you’, and those three words are enough to keep Sara happy for almost a day.

And then the day ends and she is plunged into despair again, because she’s in here so Ava can be free to live her life, and living her life means moving on, not clinging onto a relationship that can never work, not as long as Sara’s in here.

And she doesn’t know how long she’s going to be here, but it has to be a long time.

Long enough that Ava needs to forget about her, needs to move on, but Sara can’t tell her that, because as much as she begs for some form of communication, some way to write back, they don’t let her.

She’s not really surprised. She’d told them they could do what they want with her, but it still hurts.

A tiny, tiny part of her is glad, glad that she can’t tell Ava to move on. It’s the selfish part, the part that needs to know that Ava is out there, loving her, in order to survive.

She hates that part of her.

Months pass, much the same. She wishes they’d give her something regular to do, because she is restless. She says as much, and the guards just look at her with pity. Maybe they don’t trust with her any sort of responsibility. Maybe they _do_ just want her to go crazy with boredom.

She spirals in her mind, and the days pass, over and over again, taking her further in time from the last time she had seen Ava, time trudging forward relentlessly.

 

And then one day she doesn’t wake up, but is _woken_ up, being yanked out of her bed by guards she doesn’t recognise, and she panics, because what if this is the end, what if they’ve just decided to get rid of her?

She wonders if that’s what she deserves. She’s thought about death more times than she’d like to admit in the past six months, thought about how maybe that would be better, but now that she’s suddenly facing the possibility, she doesn’t want it.

The letter, that one letter, is a reminder that Ava is still thinking about her. Ava would hurt if she died, so Sara has to stay alive. Faced with the death she’d been all but fantasizing about, she doesn't want that.

She wants to live.

Nobody says anything to her, dragging her out. Nobody responds when she asks where she’s going. And then they take her down a corridor she hasn’t been down before, and hand her a pile of clothes.

Clothes that are familiar. Clothes that are the things she was wearing the day she was dumped here. A leather jacket. Jeans. Boots. She changes, confused, still not entirely certain this isn’t some game. Dress her up and kill her.

All she can do is trust, though, so she does. A door opens, and they manoeuvre her towards it. Outside, the sun is bright. She blinks. She turns to the guards, one last desperate look. “Does Ava know about this?” she asks.

Sara doesn’t believe that the Bureau trusts Ava enough yet to let her have a say, but they have to at least tell her, right?

She has to believe that.

“Can you make sure she knows where I'm going?”

Their faces are unresponsive. Maybe she really isn't going anywhere. Maybe it really is the end. They put her in a bus designed for many more people than just her. They drive, out of the prison gates and then further. The landscape is barren, dry. The complete opposite of the climate back home. She has no idea where she is, realises that she never thought to ask where she was, those whole six months.

She supposes she assumed she was somewhere close to home, somewhere close to the Bureau’s headquarters so they could keep an eye on her, but that is obviously not the case.  She gets off the bus when they tell her to.

It looks like she’s in the middle of nowhere, and then she sees a single figure, waiting for her. A single figure that is achingly familiar, even from a distance. She walks closer, hardly daring to believe, and then Ava turns, her face breaking into a relieved smile.

“Sara.” There is so much in that one word. Two syllables, and Ava makes it sound like a thousand. Sara wants to live in the way Ava just said her name.

“Ava?” She’s still disbelieving, still almost thinks it's an illusion, a trick of the light.

But then Ava is in front of Sara, her fingers on Sara’s face, and she's solid, solid and real and familiar.

“I don’t understand—" Sara says. “How—"

Ava cuts her off, leaning down, kissing her. At the feel of her lips, moving on Sara’s, soft and warm and welcoming, Sara can’t help but cry, melting into the touch.

No-one has touched her like that since they were dragged away from each other six months ago. Ava pulls away, her thumb stroking at the tears, wiping them away.

“I’ll explain on the way home,” Ava says.

“Home?” Sara says, the word sounding strange in her mouth.

“Yeah, Sara. We’re going home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT WE'VE ALMOST DONE IT KIDS. That's the main plot over, just the epilogue to go. I'll do my proper thank yous next week, but for now I just really really hope y'all like how things got wrapped up! i would really really love to hear from people, because this is truly my first experience writing a real fic with an actual plot, and obvs any feedback is always welcome, but esp on this chapter!!
> 
> Love you all!
> 
> and, as always, @_avasharpe and directoravasharpe.tumblr.com


	11. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise update! i've spent most of today on this. tomorrow wouldn't have worked, because final edits and prep have literally taken all day, and i gotta work tomorrow lol, and since i was finishing it tonight, i didn't see why i should wait. might as well ride that comic con high lol
> 
> this is the end. bring tissues. it was supposed to be 1000 words of pure fluff, and it became 4000 words of kinda... mostly bittersweet fluff, at least until the very end, and then it's just happy.
> 
> i finally updated the main spotify playlist, but i also made a little tiny little one just for the epilogue. like it's literally only three songs and depending on how quickly you read it might have to repeat but i think it really adds to it and i really love the songs on it. two were recced to me by an amazing anon on tumblr, and one is one i found literally today that i just loved. if you wanted to listen to it, it's [ here](https://open.spotify.com/user/lucylivesherlife/playlist/2bLC2bJqrhry0nBQBuIgBN?si=xyPh-HQnQGiItBEG54L-BA). i sincerely recommend finishing with sinners, so don't put it on shuffle.
> 
> tw for something that i guess would be a panic attack

“Where are we?”

“Arizona.”

“Oh.” That explains the landscape. She hadn’t been close to home, she’d been days away. She must've been out for a long time when they brought her here. “Are we driving the whole way?”

Ava grimaces, and when she speaks, her voice is hesitant, apologetic. “Yeah. I'm sorry. They wouldn’t shell out for a plane. I didn't want to push my luck.”

“No. Don't apologize,” Sara says, shaking her head. “I don't care _how_ we get home. I just want to get there.”

Ava glances away from the wheel for a second, finds Sara’s hand, gripping down tight. “We’ll get there. It'll just take a little while.”

They fall into easy silence. That’s always been easy for them, and Sara’s glad that hasn’t changed. There’ll be time for talking, but for the time being, Sara is happy just relishing the speed of the car, the movement. Everything feels amazing after being cooped up in one place for so long. She opens the window, trailing her fingers out of the car. The wind feels good on her face.

Ava looks at her, smiles briefly, before her eyes flick back to the road.

Over the next hour, Ava’s eyes keep flicking back to Sara, never lingering too long, but never going too long without glancing over—without _checking_ , because Sara knows that’s what it is.

At some point, Ava drops Sara’s hand to do something. A little while later, Sara picks it back up, slowly, carefully, because if she’s too quick, too sudden, then Ava starts stressing out about her driving, about getting distracted.

“Hey,” Sara says, softly, ducking her head slightly, bringing Ava’s hand up to her mouth, pressing a kiss onto the knuckles there. She looks up at Ava through her eyelashes. Ava’s eyes flick back and forth relentlessly, obviously wanting to keep her eyes on Sara, but knowing she can’t. “You’re staring at me.”

For a second, Ava is silent, her eyes searching, and then she lets out a breath, a soft sound, and her lip trembles slightly, obviously remembering. “Yeah, because you’re beautiful,” she says, eventually.

Sara smiles, memories rushing back of a time long gone, and it's bittersweet.

“And because I missed you so much, Sara.”

Sara intertwines their fingers more, locking them together. “I know, baby. So did I.” She looks over at Ava, and there are tears welling up on her lash line. “Hey, you need to stop driving for a second?”

Ava shakes her head, blinking, staring ahead. “No. No, I’m fine.”

“Okay. Hold still,” Sara says, leaning over, carefully wiping at Ava’s cheeks with a finger, her turn to ward away the tears.

Ava sniffs. “I’m sorry.” More drops spill out, rolling down her cheeks. Her voice is thick with tears when she says, “Look, I’m undoing all your work.”

Sara sighs, shaking her head.

“Stop apologizing, Ava. You still got tissues in the glovebox?” Sara asks, and Ava nods, ever prepared. Sara pulls them out, then looks at Ava. “Pull over, baby.”

This time, Ava does, taking the tissues once the car has come to a stop, wiping at her face. When she is done, she looks up. “How do I look?”

“Beautiful.”

“No, really.”

Sara undoes her seatbelt, leaning closer, kissing Ava lightly, her hands either side of her face. “Beautiful.” Ava’s eyes close. “Beautiful,” Sara repeats, over and over, in between laying kisses all over her face.

When Ava’s breathing has slowed slightly, when her eyes are no longer red, Sara stops, just leaning close, their foreheads touching, breathing in time, silent for a couple of minutes. “You okay to drive again?” Sara eventually asks, quietly. "Or I can."

Ava just shakes her head, says, “You've been through a lot. I can drive.”

Sara narrows her eyes. “Do you think I've forgotten how to drive?”

“No!” Ava says, her voice still watery, defensive.

Sara raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe a little bit." There's a tiny smile on Ava's face, and it feels like something has shifted a little, the tears slightly further in the rearview mirror.

“Wow.”

“I don't want us crashing before we get home, Sara," and there's something of the old Ava there.

“I love you, too,” Sara says, indignant, then glances over at her, her voice turning serious. "Only if you're sure you're okay."

Ava takes a second, then nods. "I'm fine, Sara."

 

A couple hours later, Sara decides to finally broach the subject that she needs to know the answer to.

“How did you do it? Get me out, I mean.” Sara pauses. “It was you, right? They didn't just… change their mind?”

“It was me,” Ava confirms. “It took— It took a while. I spent months working on your case before I even dared bring it to them. I had to get their trust back. Worked ridiculously long hours without extra pay. Took all the shitty missions I used to pass over when I had my search for you as an excuse. Convinced Gary I wasn't a traitor.”

“And then?” Sara asks.

“And then I gave them my case for you. I'd gone through all of the League’s documents, all their files, showed what they did to you, corroborated everything you’d said. Air tight case.” She pauses. “I even found records of everyone they made you kill, and…”

“And?”

“You almost never killed anyone completely innocent. Did you know that?”

“No. Really?” Sara asks, and it's incredulous. But it makes sense. It was rarely ever necessary to kill complete innocents. They never usually had enemies that wanted them dead.

“Yeah.” Ava shakes her head. “I mean, it doesn't make it right, but… a lot of them had done bad things. Horrible things.”

Sara laughs, low and rueful. “Ra’s always liked to say we were making the world better. But I suppose we only killed the bad guys he didn't like, so he couldn’t really talk. All the people who paid him for protection were all terrible people.” She pauses, doesn’t say what she’s thinking, that she did their bidding, and that makes her terrible as well. She takes a breath, pushing that down. There’ll be time to talk about that. So much time. Suddenly she has all the time in the world. “So they let me out, just like that? Just because I mostly killed criminals?”

“No. They said no. Said it was convincing, that it made it slightly better, but that it didn't absolve you.”

Sara wouldn't have accepted that argument, either. She'd still killed them. Still played judge, jury and executioner.

“Honestly, I— I nearly gave up.” Ava’s voice is wobbling again. “I nearly gave up. I’d spent so long on that, and they looked at it for all of an hour, and then made their decision, just like _that_ , and it nearly broke me. I nearly gave up.”

“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had, baby.”

“I would’ve blamed myself,” Ava says, and Sara knows that true. Ava sighs. “I nearly gave up, but I didn’t... somehow. I had to give it one more go. That was three months ago. After I decided to keep trying, they let me send you that letter and I tried so hard to tell you that I was still working on getting you out, but they redacted everything I tried to say.”

Sara smile at the thought of the letter, the letter that no longer has to cause her pain, because she’s back with Ava, doesn’t have to keep wishing she’d move on. And then the smile falls off her face as she realises that she doesn't have the letter anymore, that they didn't let her pack anything before she left.

Ava sees the change in her face. “You okay, babe? Sara?” Her voice is panicked, seeing the colour drain out of Sara's face.

“I don't have the letter,” Sara says, and she can't believe it, but she's choking back tears, and then it gets worse, because all of a sudden, she can’t breathe. “I don't have it. Ava, I don’t have it,” she gasps out, bracing herself against the dashboard, trying to suck in air, but it’s not working. The world is closing in on her, and she can’t see anything, can’t hear anything. Ava is a distant blur, a distant blur slamming on the brakes for the second time in as many hours.

And then Ava’s hands are on her, gentle, and her head stops spinning, and sounds that aren’t a horrible ringing come back. “Come on, babe, breathe. I got you.” Sara gasps, oxygen finally rushing in, filling her lungs, and Ava smiles encouragingly. “Yeah, just like that. You got this.” She pauses, tucking a strand of hair behind Sara's ear, her touch soothing, her voice even more so. “It’s fine, Sara. Everything’s fine. It's going to be fine. It’s just paper. I think I have it all memorized, anyway. ”

So does Sara, but that's not the problem. It's the meaning of the thing.

This one thing that kept her going.

She looks at Ava, eyes wild, and Ava speaks again. "Yeah, I know that probably doesn't help. I know how you feel. It's okay. You're okay." Ava always had a knack for that, for knowing exactly what Sara was feeling. It's comforting to know that that's still there.

Sara takes a deep breath, relishing in being able to even do that. The letter gone now. She just has to accept it. There’s nothing else she can do. She’s sure they’ve already destroyed everything she kept while she was there. She takes another breath, letting the world set itself right, letting herself focus on Ava's hands where they're still gripping her tight.

“We can keep going,” Sara says, her voice weak. “At this rate, we’re never getting back.”

Ava looks at her, worried, like she's worried Sara is going to disappear into herself again.

“Are you sure? I don't care how quickly we get back. Are you okay?”

“I will be,” Sara says. She takes another breath. Ava starts the car again. After a little while, another fifteen minutes of silence and slow breathing, Sara steers the conversation back to where she had been before she derailed it.

“What happened after the letter?”

“After the letter, I stopped trying to build a case for you. I'd given them everything that could possibly make them sympathise with you, and it hadn't worked. So I changed tack.”

“Hmm?”

“Money. Keeping you there was ridiculously expensive. And they couldn't put you in a normal prison without a trial. They didn't want that, either. So I got a sort of compromise.” Ava's face is apprehensive. “It's… kind of community service.”

Sara raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Don't be mad.”

“I could literally never be mad at you, Aves. You just got me out of prison. Where am I gonna be working?”

“Strictly you're not going to be getting paid, at least not for a long while, so it's more like... volunteering.”

Sara rolls her eyes. “Fine. Where am I going to be ‘volunteering’?”

“The Bureau.”

“Oh,” Sara says, the sound escaping before she can stop it. She hadn't been expecting that. “Really?”

Ava bites her lip. “Yeah. They, uh, saw how well we worked together and I guess they figured why spend money keeping you locked up when you could be…”

“Providing free labour instead?”

“Essentially.”

Sara smiles, really properly smiles. “So I get to work with you?”

“You're— you're okay with this? I thought I'd have to persuade you. You didn't seem too keen on the Bureau when you had to work with them before.”

“They were treating you like shit and the they were going to lock me up.”

“They _did_ lock you up.”

“Ava. Baby. I don't care. You got me out. I'd work on a garbage truck if I had to. Working with you is a bonus.”

Ava smiles, relaxing. The tension moves out of her body. “Really?”

“Really.”

A couple of minutes later, Sara speaks again. “If I'm working with you that means we don't have to keep any more secrets.”

“No,” Ava says, her expression content. “No more secrets.”

 

They stop at a motel, and it’s almost identical to the one they had stayed in a million years ago, before everything went down.

Sara shrugs off her jacket. Something crinkles quietly in the pocket, and there, where someone must have put it, where she didn't even notice when she was getting dressed in a daze back in the prison, is Ava’s letter. She looks at it in wonder. Someone at the prison had realised this was important. Maybe they weren't all bad. Maybe working at the Bureau wouldn’t be terrible, if there were people like that, people like Ava there.

She hadn’t been lying when she said she didn’t mind her new… work assignment. She really, truly, would’ve done anything if it meant being out and back at home with Ava. But she was just slightly apprehensive about working with them, working with people who hated her at worst, and feared her at best, so this made her feel slightly better, slightly hopeful that there would be people other than Ava that she might get along with.

“I love you,” Ava says, pointing at her words in the letter. Sara looks down, having been lost in the moment, briefly distracted. “I'm sorry— I haven't— I didn't say that until now. But you know that, right?”

“God, yes,” Sara says, leaning in close.

Ava smiles, presses Sara down onto the bed, her mouth hard.

Sara lets herself sink into the kiss for a second, then pulls away, just ever so slightly.

“I'm okay if we don't go any further than this,” she whispers. “You said you needed time. I know it’s been months but I… haven’t exactly been there to build this back up. But we've got all the time in the world, now. I don't mind waiting, if you don't want to do anything.”

Ava nods, a tiny nod, and then pushes Sara back further. Her mouth is less urgent, slower, and Sara doesn't even need sex, because _this—_ Ava's fingers tangled in her hair, Sara’s on Ava’s neck, their bodies flush—is all she will ever need.

And then one of Ava’s hands moves to press up underneath the hem of Sara’s shirt, her palm flat on the skin of Sara’s stomach, and, okay, maybe Sara needs that, as well, but it's her only concession—Ava’s hand on her skin, warm and soft and leaving goosebumps in its wake.

She'd be satisfied with just this for the rest of her life, if Ava was the one giving it to her.

Ava pulls away for a second when her fingers trace over mottled skin. She looks at the scar on Sara’s stomach. It’s long since healed, but is now a permanent reminder of the day that they almost fell apart. Ava’s face twists in pain, and Sara needs to get rid of that, so she smiles, says, “None of the nurses who helped change the dressing were as nice as you,” and Ava laughs, a soft laugh. The tension is eased away, and they fall back together. Sara can't get enough of her, can't get close enough.

When they fall asleep together, for their first night’s sleep next to each other in half a year, neither of them have nightmares, and it’s a little bit of a miracle, but feels right.

 

The drive is long, but Sara hardly notices it, because Ava is talking the whole time, telling Sara everything she's missed.

Sara could listen to Ava talk all day. She's missed her voice so much.

When they get home, Sara is surprised by how… normal it is. It feels like it should look different, but it's the same house she's always lived in.

(The only thing that’s different, Ava had told her, is the kitchen, redone after Sara slightly exploded it, and the electrics, gutted to get rid of any trace of the surveillance the League had placed there.)

She steps inside, and it feels right. Not perfect, but right. It's the same hallway, the same hallway where they'd fallen apart and fallen back together. It's something, that's for sure.

And then Ava joins her, her hand in the small of Sara’s back, reassuring, and there it is. _Now_ it’s perfect.

“Welcome home,” Ava says.

Sara just smiles.

 

Falling back into _their_ bed with Ava is more than perfect.

 

Sara sits in the kitchen the next morning. She's wearing one of Ava’s sweaters, just because she can.

It's oversized for Ava, so, on Sara, it hangs down to top of her thighs. It's almost decent. Not quite, but then, they’re at home. For the first time in six months, Sara doesn't have to worry about anyone watching her but Ava.

The fabric is soft, warm, well-worn. It feels like home. Maybe she’ll never wear her clothes again, maybe she’ll just steal Ava’s. That’s something she could do, now. She can do anything. The world is wide open.

She's up early, because she was always up early at the prison, and you don't just snap out of a routine just like that. When Ava eventually wakes up, comes downstairs, she's adorably sleepy. Sara just hands her a cup of coffee, wordless.

And then Ava’s face twists, and Sara’s stomach turns.

“I got worried when you weren't there when I woke up,” Ava says, her voice quiet. “I thought I lost you again.”

“No,” Sara says, pulling her close. “Never.”

After that, Sara stops getting out of bed before Ava wakes up. It's not a hard change to make. She gets to stay tangled up in her a little longer, watching her sleep. When Ava wakes up, there is always the same smile on her face, like she's seeing Sara for the first time. Like she's the best thing Ava has ever seen.

When Ava reaches out a sleepy hand to find Sara, to touch her, to know that she's real, Sara’s heart breaks, just a tiny bit, but it is healed when Ava’s smile only widens, even half asleep, at the feeling of Sara under her fingertips.

 

It takes Sara a little time to settle into the Bureau. Everyone distrusts her at first, wary of the assassin in their midst.

But after a couple of months, a couple of months where they see she's more competent than most of them combined, and where they seem to decide that she's _not_ going to kill them, they almost seem to accept her.

At least, no-one starts when they see her anymore—except Gary, that is, but he just seems like he's always nervous.

She eats lunch with Ava in her office. It's fancy, big glass walls and open space.

Apparently, it would've been bigger, had her big mission not fallen through so spectacularly, but Ava's voice is earnest when she convinces Sara that she doesn't mind, that she wouldn't trade the promotion for her, ever.

Sara believes her.

They work perfectly together, like Sara had known they would. They're the perfect balance. Ava pulls back when Sara takes a mission a little too far. Sara pushes forward when Ava hesitates.

Together, they make the right call, over and over again. No-one at the Bureau does better work. It helps that Sara knows how the enemy thinks, how it works. Her record at the Bureau is spotless. Everything she touches turns out well. And, somehow, she's actually enjoying working for the government.

Seven years ago, she would never have imagined in a million years that she'd be saying that.

Seven years ago, she hadn't even been sure she'd survive this long.

But she'd met Ava, and that had changed everything.

Ava had ruined her, and she'd never been more grateful to be ruined, because Ava had saved her as well.

 

At night, they get closer, closer than even before, because now, finally, there is nothing to hide, and they can both be themselves, not having to worry about checking what they're saying, not having to worry about anything. Nothing is off limits, and there's so much to tell, so much to spill, every word confessed feeling like another weight off both of both of their backs, every word bringing them closer.

But Sara is still cautious, still careful. There is the smallest feeling that this thing is still breakable, so Sara is wary of pushing too far, too fast. She doesn't have to worry about what she says, but she is spends every second thinking about what she's doing, about making sure Ava isn't uncomfortable, trying not to ruin the painstaking progress they have made.

She'll wait for Ava to be ready, however long that takes.

She is satisfied just being close to Ava. She doesn't need more, doesn't need to touch her like that, not if Ava doesn't want it.

A couple of times, Ava offers to take care of Sara, and Sara believes that the offers are genuine, that Ava would be fine doing that, but she really doesn't need it. Doesn't even want it, not while they're healing, not while Ava wouldn't want it back.

So they wait, dancing a careful dance around each other.

And then one day they are in bed, faces close, eyes closed.

“I love you,” Ava murmurs.

“I love you, too,” Sara replies, her voice a whisper.

“I love you so much, Sara,” Ava says, her voice earnest. “So much.”

A smile breaks on Sara’s face, one she can't restrain. Ava pulls her closer, presses a kiss to her temple, her mouth warm. Sara's smile only widens. Her eyes are still closed. Their hands are intertwined and Sara’s thumb is rubbing over Ava’s skin. Ava hums, just a tiny bit, at the touch.

The motion is only supposed to be comforting, grounding. Sara’s almost not even thinking about it—she's just content being where she is, doing what she’s doing.

She's not intending to invite anything else.

But then Ava’s foot nudges Sara’s legs, pressing in between, and Ava is shifting even closer, if that was even possible.

Sara’s eyes snap open, and Ava is smiling at her.

“Baby?”

“Hmm?” Ava’s response doesn't give Sara any answers. Her lips are pressed together, and her expression offers no answers, either. Instead, Ava just nudges her knee higher.

It’s not like they haven’t touched in any way since Sara got back, not like this is the first time they’re this close, but there is something here that is _different_ , some intent behind the movement that hasn't been there, and it almost takes Sara’s breath away.

She can feel anticipation building, but she reins it in, monitors her tone when she says, “Ava…”

Ava is still smiling.

“Do you—" Sara can't finish the question before Ava speaks again.

“Yes.” Ava nods.

“Are you sure? You know I'd wait as long as you need, right?”

“Yes,” Ava says. “And that's why it's time. Because I know you'd wait, and I trust you.”

“You trust me?” It's almost a year since everything went down, time enough for things to heal, but trust… trust takes time. The months of healing have been long, but Sara would wait longer, if she had to.

“More than I did before, even. Now that I know everything.” Ava pauses. “When I first found out, I thought letting you touch me would hurt me. And then I lost you, again, and realised I was so wrong, that losing you hurt so much more. I realised I didn't care about your past.” Ava closes her eyes for a second. “I still needed time, though, even when I got you back. To get back to where we were. It was going to be a while before I could want—" She cuts herself off, a tinge of pink on her cheeks, and she's _nervous._

It's like they're beginning all over again. Sara smirks, leaning in close. “Before you could want what, baby?” she asks, her voice low.

Ava bites her lip. “You,” she says, simply. “Like that. Again.”

“And do you, now?” Sara asks. “Want me… like that?”

“Yes,” Ava breathes, her breath hitching in her throat as Sara’s hand splays on her stomach.

“ _What_ do you want, Ava? I need to hear you say it.” Sara isn't doing anything more until she is absolutely, positively sure Ava is okay with it. She needs to hear the exact words from Ava, needs it like air.

Needs the confirmation, in nothing less than certain terms.

Ava places a hand round Sara’s neck, kisses her, quickly, then pulls back, meeting Sara’s gaze, her expression serious. There is no room for doubt when she speaks. Her voice is low. “I want _you,_ Sara. Right now.”

The words echo through Sara’s mind, bringing back memories from another time—a bar and a dress and a mission almost gone wrong, bandages under her shirt. They flash through her mind, and, _yes_ , she can work with that. Combined with the earnest look on Ava’s face, it's more than enough, more than enough certainty. She shifts position carefully, so that Ava is under her.

Ava, the woman who ruined her.

Ava, the woman who single-handedly brought down the League. (She had loved Sara when Sara had been sure she was unloveable and unredeemable, and that was the beginning of the end, so it was all her, really.)

Ava, who is looking up at her with love and trust (and lust) in her eyes.

Sara smiles. She leans down, pressing kisses to Ava’s skin. “What was it you wanted, again?” she asks, teasing. Her voice is light.

A tiny frustrated sound comes out of Ava’s mouth, but she's smiling as well.

“You.”

“Me?” Sara asks, raising an eyebrow. “Are you su—"

Ava pulls Sara down, swallowing her words with her mouth. “Just touch me, Sara,” she says, her mouth against Sara’s cheek, only a hint of pleading in her voice.

Sara pulls away. Looks at her. Ava looks back, her gaze steady.

They're not back to normal, because the old normal had been a lie.

This is something new, and it's better.

“Okay, baby, okay,” Sara says, giving in.

Ava smiles, and she is the sunrise.

 

 THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow guys. i made it. i want to say a ginormous thank you to everyone who has ever read, kudosd, commented, reblogged, replied, liked, sent me a message or an ask about this. every single person who reached out or interacted in ANY WAY made posting this a better experience. you're all amazing, and i can't thank you enough for making my first experience of posting a multi-chapter of this length so gratifying. my heart is. so full.
> 
> this has been a long labour of love for me. literally since last year. having it all finished and posted is, ngl, incredibly surreal. just the knowledge i can't go back and change ANYTHING is kinda fucking me up, but it's okay, because it's finally all out there. considering i finished the first draft of the whole fic in literally MAY (a lot has been added since then. 14k words of a lot, in fact) it's even been a long ride from FINISHING, let alone from starting, so it really is the end of a very long journey that literally stretches back to my first weeks in this fandom. 
> 
> not to get soft or anything, but i could not have imagined back then what this fandom would become. i've never written this much for a ship or so much in such a short amount of time. i've never had so much interaction on tumblr. sure, my mental health is still iffy, and y'all will know that from the end notes and my tumblr posts and tweets, and i'm still not 100% sure fic is the best thing for it, but when it's good, it's so so good. i've made some really good friends in this fandom, and that, at least, is completely positive.
> 
> i know these thanks you might seem like a lot for a 50k fic because there are loads of authors out there that seem to be able to whack out a fic this long or longer every month or so but this really is. hella big for me. the only thing i've written longer than this is my original novel (don't ask, its real bad, this is a million times better) so this is Big for me so pls forgive me if i'm being annoying lmao
> 
> anyway, to finish, once again, i cannot thank you guys enough, from the bottom of my heart, for loving this story with the ridiculous premise as much as i did. if you want to yell at me, socials are, as always, @_avasharpe and directoravasharpe.tumblr.com
> 
> and with that, i leave you with [ something](https://78.media.tumblr.com/3c79ff3ce54177a58bf293a507f5841e/tumblr_pc9hwf6BXd1rfsniyo2_540.gif) that looks a little like what i imagine the end scene looks like (I added in exactly three (3) sentences to make it fit, because i'm Soft) and say Goodbye (at least to _this_ fic like do not worry i'm not going anywhere) 
> 
> (or, do i? keeps your eyes peeled for... something... that _might_ be posted separate to this fic.... because it maybe requires.... a different rating.... and i don't want to up the rating on this whole fic. emphasis on might. but the plot is 100% over. this... potential addition would be.... plotless)


End file.
